January 4, 2024
Volume 54 - No. 1
by Sean Dietrich Morning. The lobby of my hotel is crowded. It’s breakfast time. The lobby is decorated for Christmas. This is the moment of day when guests emerge from rooms with messed-up hair, bedroom slippers, and wrinkled clothes. They shuffle through corridors toward Bunn coffee machines like the living dead. I’m eating processed “scrambledegg-like” matter, and sausage that has been labeled “100% real meat.”
There is an elderly man in line who uses a mechanical wheelchair. He wears a green ballcap with “Vietnam” printed on the front.
the old man’s plate. The old man thanks him. “What else do you want on your plate?” Junior asks.
The boy points to the sausage. “Would you like some of this stuff?”
He cannot reach the buffet serving spoon because his wheelchair is too low.
The old man says, “Oh, don’t worry about me, I can help myself.”
“How much would you like?”
Behind him in line is a boy. The kid has reddish hair and freckles. He is full-faced and friendly. “Here,” says the boy, “allow me.” The kid uses the serving spoon to dish the “eggish” abberation onto
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“I don’t mind. I’ll help you.” The old man just smiles at the kid. This man is perfectly capable of fixing his own plate, but sometimes an act of service isn’t about the servee. “Okay,” says the old man.
“Yes, please.”
“I’ll say ‘when.’” The boy “When?”
wrinkles
his
face.
“It’s what people say whenever they’ve had enough of a good thing.” The boy still doesn’t understand.
Morning
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