Ask Me Something
"I think I ruined the end of the world," he said.
Before he makes your drink, Dave asks if you're afraid to die.
Doesn’t matter what you order. Doesn’t matter if you’re bleeding, late to your own funeral, or holding a dead bird. That’s the rule now.
“How old were you when you stopped recognizing yourself in the mirror?”
“What would you save if your apartment caught fire and your ex was still inside?”
"Is forgiveness real, or just an expensive drug?"
His name tag says WHO CARES in Sharpie. No one argues. One guy tried and got banned for life.
Dave’s been fired six times. Corporate keeps re-hiring him because he’s the only barista willing to serve espresso to ghosts.
I come every day. Told myself it was for the caffeine. It wasn’t. I liked being interrogated by someone who looked like he lost a knife fight against a philosophy textbook.
Once, he asked a woman what her bedroom smelled like when she buried her first lie under the bed.
She said cinnamon and Halloween mask plastic.
I haven’t stopped thinking about it, even after the nightmares started.
One morning: no question. No joke. No jacked-up Socrates act.
Just Dave, slouched behind the counter like a man who got a cease-and-desist letter from hope itself.
"I think I ruined the end of the world," he said.
I nodded and tipped him five bucks like it was bail money.
He handed me a latte with my name spelled right and SORRY dusted on top in cinnamon.
It tasted like a goodbye I was too stupid to notice happening.
I walked outside and waited for the sky to split.
I almost turned back.
I wanted him to ask me something.
Anything.
Something I couldn’t come back from.
Mallory Smart is a Chicago-based writer and Editor-in-Chief of Maudlin House. She hosts Textual Healing and That Horrorcast podcasts. Her book, I Keep My Visions to Myself, is out with With an X Books.
Twitter/IG: @malsmart
Website: mallorysmart.com
