A Moment of Infinity

I typically became restless at night, choosing stress in lieu of sleep. Sat alone at a diner bar, my mind brimmed with unfeasible futures as I stared headlong at my midnight serving of hashbrowns. The diner near my apartment typically proved itself a temporary refuge during my worst panics. I enjoyed lingering in a quiet place that still had people, even well into the night. During those moments, I could escape myself by observing the other patrons. Unfortunately, tonight was less busy than my usual outings, save for a family with a suspicious number of children awake at midnight and a trio of older drunk college girls in the corner booths.

I was left alone to observe my own head. I simply sat there twirling a stained fork in my hands, leg bouncing restlessly on the crossbar of my wobbly wooden stool. In my fugue state, I couldn’t help but watch the backlit silhouette of a fry crook through the kitchen window behind the bar. He appeared to be bent over the bubbling forms of fried eggs, only stopping his work to take a covert hit from a vape pen.

A waitress made a rotation around the diner, holding a pot of steaming coffee, asking the others if they would like some. I had trouble looking her in the eye when she got to me. She reminded me of someone I’d rather forget. I could only shake my head and make a vaguely human noise when she asked me if I wanted coffee. When she stepped away, I found myself now thinking of the past. A kaleidoscope of painful distorted memories and their lost futures hung in my mind. I kept twisting the fork, occasionally tapping it against the bar in a disjointed rhythm. The hashbrowns merely grew cold in front of me, for I had lost my appetite. It was all I could do just to keep myself in place.

It often became hard to distinguish any individual thoughts during moments like this. A thousand impulses, feelings, and half-formed questions raced through my head. Trying to grab any single one would’ve been like plucking grains from a sandstorm. It certainly felt equally abrasive. My vision began spinning in time with the swirling maelstrom of thoughts. The stabs of my quickening breath shook the flimsy stool I sat on.

There existed a sinister undercurrent within my jumbled thoughts; attempting to reach it, I deliberated for an unknowable amount of time, sifting through this new mental pathway. At last a common theme emerged, the basis of my anguish. Without thinking, I declared my manifesto, “I don’t want to be me anymore!"

There was an imperceptible shuffle throughout the diner as my fellow patrons braced for the brunt of a public outburst. My self-inflicted fury grew. I needed to move, find something to distract myself. I stood up, hooked the stool between my arms, and felt it leave my hands as I flung it across the diner. It was an accident, a sudden uncontrollable burst of nervous energy. I could feel my anxieties give way to instant regret in that precious stretch of time as I watched the stool ascend, bisecting the air in its glorious flight.

The fluorescent lights highlighted one side of the flying stool and then the other as it spun over itself like a planet in an endless void. The sight gave me the impression of a day passing with each rotation beneath the sun-like bulb of diner lights. I saw this sun rise and set over grooves in the stool’s cheap wood. In my mind, I could trace the shape of continents on the seat’s patchy leather. I felt a modicum of amusement at the new world I created for myself.

The kitchen window disappeared in a puff of smoke as the vape pen fell from the fry cook’s shocked mouth. The drunk college students, they too saw, each equally terrified by the spectacle of the flying stool. As though attached to one muscle, the family in the corner all simultaneously contracted with the mutual understanding that they would bear witness to this world I was creating.

A moment passed, and then another. I made sure to savor every epoch, my last few seconds before consequences emerged. Onwards the stool went, legs pointed outwards, like a leaping martial artist. The stool’s orbital path took it on a collision course towards the rain-covered window on the other side of the diner. Bang. A web of cracks spiraled out from the initial point of impact. The stool completely shattered the window, soared beyond the diner, and landed somewhere in the night outside. The waitress jumped in her skin and sent the coffee in her pot flying. I felt my heart racing in my ears, my temples contorted from the hyperaware strain of consciously feeling time. The whole event appeared nearly frozen, or at least very slow. The space where an intact window once existed was now a floating cosmos of broken glass. The mesmerizing fragments remained precariously balanced in the air for an infinitesimal moment in time. I wanted to observe every microsecond of the affair, to live in this new universe I created for as long as it could sustain itself.

Each suspended shard of the shattered window reflected the lights around it. Some fragments turned red from the tail lights of a car in the parking lot, many reflected the white light of the diner, and a few were yellow from streetlights. Altogether, the broken glass resembled a field of stars. Constellations emerged from the destruction, all of which were unique and wonderful to me. The arrangement portrayed a hundred stories of ancient half-forgotten heroes and of a modern generation angered by its collective inability to live up to those old ideals. Among the stars, I witnessed a thousand unheard nations crying for purpose. I never struggled alone.

The streaks of the rain outside formed a backdrop of comets. The waitress’s spilled coffee, still falling towards the ground, formed an obscuring greasy nebula as the droplets scattered in the air. She had unknowingly become my collaborator in this fragile universe. I welcomed her in my mind. I needed to create a place for all in this short infinity. Everyone deserved to see the otherworldly and temporary beauty of the stars. If the diner could see what I saw, they would’ve forgiven me.

Someone screamed, one of the children, I believe. Time resumed, and my new reality came crashing down. The stars again became glass and plummeted towards the ground. The coffee nebula splattered on the floor. An entire cosmos had been born and snuffed out in a fraction of a second. But the stillness of the diner remained. The other patrons looked at me, assessing me for any further outbursts. No one, including myself, was certain what to do now. I simply turned around to scan the other diners. I guessed I had hoped they would understand a fraction of the beauty I created for them. One of the family’s kids began crying, undoubtedly traumatized by the violent birth of my new world. His parents pulled out two crusty twenties and slammed them on the table, preferring to leave the scene as fast as possible with their kids in tow.

The college girls said nothing, merely shooting frantic, inebriated glances to make sure I wasn’t approaching. One of them cradled a pale glow in her lap, a phone screen already primed to call 9-1-1. Her two friends nervously held onto the table as if they feared that I would pick it up and throw it next.

I needed to say something. The reality of my current situation dawned on me, and my panic returned in blistering waves. Between bile and empty words, nothing good reached my lips. All I could say was, “Wait! You don’t need to— ” but a swift blow to my side interrupted me and knocked me to the ground. The fry cook had tackled me to the ground; he was far more muscular than his silhouette had portrayed. I could smell the vape pen’s mango flavoring on his breath as he held me to the floor. The waitress stood by and saw everything.