Her feet ached far more than usual.  She checked her watch.  It was quarter after two and there was no relief for another four hours.  Cheryl and Holly walked in and sat down at their regular booth.  They were part of the group -- those creatures that emerged only when it was dark and went to work when most were going to bed.  They were Night People and Jane was the one that severed them coffee. 

          She rose slowly and absently grabbed the coffee pot.  It was only the regulars tonight.

          “Hey honey.  Why you still ruining your pretty feet in a job like this?  You can always come work with us.”

          “She’d have to fix herself up, though.  Got to do something about that hair darlin’.”

          “I don't see how it would help my feet.  You’re always standing except when you come in here.”

          “When we’re working, darlin’, we ain’t standing.”

          “Do you want coffee?”

          “Pay no attention to them.  All you need is someone to look after you.”

          “Well, what about you?”

          “I can’t even take care of myself.”  Swift said. 

It was pseudonym he adopted after his amnesia.  He’d named himself after his favourite writer.  His disease had left him insomniac.  He was so scared to lose himself again he was too afraid to fall asleep.  He wrote everything he thought into his notebook so anyone could pick it up and know exactly who he was.

“Trust me.  In a couple of years when everything begins to sag they’ll be exactly where you are.”

          “And where will I be?  Good morning Jonathan.  Try and get some sleep.”

          “And may all your dreams come true as well.”

Jane walked the few blocks to her apartment in the eerie gloom of pre-dawn.  Though her feet still ached she was capable of ignoring them.  The streets around the diner were broken and the buildings bent, but she didn’t notice.  All she knew was the safety of her place and the comfort of her bed.

          When she got home she was incapable of closing her eyes and drifting to sleep.  She understood Swift’s life because she had her own type of insomnia.  To be able to sleep the sun had to be shinning.  She had worked the night shift for so long that she had to see the sun rise before she could close her eyes.  Even on her days off she slept during the day.  Jane went through her normal routine of disrobing, getting under the covers and waiting for the light to shine through her window.  As soon as the first beam hit the floor her eyes instinctively shut and she tried to sleep forever.

He first came in sometime during the week.  Jane didn’t notice until his third or fourth night in a row.

          “Who’s the new guy?”  Jane asked Swift who glanced over his shoulder before returning to scribbling in his notebook. 

          “I don’t know.  He looks a little strange though doesn’t he?”

          “Who doesn’t in here.”

          “I mean even for here.”

          Swift was right.  The stranger was a black man with a shaved head decorated with some type of brands.  What Jane noticed was truly strange was if she stared long enough she could notice a vague fluorescence that emanated from his skin.  It radiated a few inches from his body.  Jane was never sure if it was truly there or not.

           The stranger had the habit of taking the booth next to the door and staring out the window obviously waiting for something.  Most people that came to the diner had nothing worth waiting for.  The stranger, however, persisted.

          “Did you want more coffee?”

          “Excuse?”  He turned his gaze from the window to Jane.  His voice was quiet, but clear.  It held its own melody though he spoke in short phrases.  “Please.  And Pie.”

          She poured the coffee and returned shortly with the pie.

          “What are you waiting for?”

          “Excuse?”

          “You come here, sit and watch. Obviously you are waiting for something.”

          “We are all waiting for something.”  Jane noticed that even his eyes reflected the light.  “Or someone.”

          “Well, I don't think it’s coming, whatever it is.  It’s been three days already.”

          “It’s been a lifetime.”  He raised the lapels of his overcoat and turned back to the darkness of the street.

          “You better bring us the big breakfast, honey.  We’re going to be up all morning.”

          “Does he sound as sexy as he looks, darling?”

          “You were sitting right here.  You tell me.”  Jane filled their cups and went to the kitchen.  “I need two number fours.”

          “I make it a point not to listen to other people’s conversations.  It clutters my head.”  Swift didn’t look up from his notebook.

          “Okay, which one of you is the strange one?”  Jane asked.

          “But, I’m harmless.  Mostly harmless.  I’m not sure about him.”

          “All he said was that he was waiting.”

          “I hope he keeps waiting.  Because I have the feeling that I don’t want to be around when what he is waiting for shows up.”

          It didn’t take long for the stranger to become a regular.  He still didn’t speak much and when he did it was only to Jane.  She was beginning to look forward to their stilted exchanges for their uniqueness if for nothing else. 

          “Still waiting?”

          “Always.”

          “How do you know when it comes?”

          “I will know.  There be a sign.”

          “It could have already come and you missed it.”  Jane was teasing and was upset by the seriousness in his response.

          “If I’ve missed it then it means the end.”

          “It could be right in front of you.”  Jane tried to make up for her comment.

          Then one night he was absent.  The presence that was new only a few weeks before now left the room a little darker.

          “Our mystery man has disappeared. I guess whatever he was waiting showed up somewhere else.”

          “I don’t think so.”  Swift decided to ignore the longing in Jane’s voice.

          That night when she left her feet ached beyond any pain she had felt before.   She dragged herself down the darkened street thinking of nothing else, but getting home.  She didn’t notice the stranger’s fluorescence waiting at the corner. 

          “Good Morning.”

          “What?”  Even when she recognized who had stopped her she couldn’t begin to understand what was happening.   “Oh.  What are you doing?”

          “Waiting.  I was in the wrong place.  I was waiting for you.”

          Jane kept walking.  “What do you mean, you were waiting for me?  Why didn’t you just come in?”

          The stranger reached out to grab her, then thought better of it and retreated his hand slowly.  He shook his head and stopped at the corner.  Jane continued toward home.

          She arrived home, discarded her clothes on the floor and dove under the covers waiting for the sun, and sleep, to arrive. 

          When she woke the world was in full shine and it seemed to shine a little brighter at Jane’s window.  It was her day off and there was nothing to be done.  She had nowhere to go and no one to see.  She needed the time to recover, but she couldn’t help thinking that there should be more to life then this. 

She tried to find her energy.  She tried to find something to do, to hold onto, but nothing came and she floated around the apartment like a ghost.  As fast as the world spun moving the sun in the sky was as fast as Jane moved through the day.  Slow and monumental.  Every movement took on an importance simply because of the action.

          The world revolved far enough for the sun to disappear and plunge Jane’s side of the world into darkness.  Everything except the space outside her window that strangely remained lit.

          “How long have you been there?  Still waiting?”     

          “Yes.”  He was perched on the side of the building.

          “Do you want to come inside?”

          The stranger cocked his head and stared at Jane. 

“Yes.” 

He started to come in through the window when Jane put up her hand to stop him almost sending him falling backward off the ledge.

          “I don't let anybody in whose name I don’t know.”

          “Foss.”

          “That’s it?  No last name.”  Foss shook his head.  “What kind of name is that?”

          “It’s foreign.”  He made his way silently to the kitchen where he immediately started pulling out pots and food.

          “What is this?  It’s great.”

          “It’s foreign.”     

          “I’m really surprised I had the ingredients for it.”

          “It’s simple.  It contains something special.”

          They watched each other eat as they past through one of those awkward moments.  Seduction is never born whole.  It comes in pieces to be formed by the will.  A touch and a look.  An object and an image.  A sound and a movement.  A word.

          Jane didn’t know what she had done to trigger it.  It was as if it was turning inside him like the sunrise and the moment came where it rose above the horizon.

          “The world was young.”  He paused and shook his head.  Jane knew better then to respond.  “The world was younger.  It has never been young.  The world was full of light.  There was little else.  Few creatures.  Some trees.  No buildings.  No towns.  What was called mountains was the slope of the land.  Everything was flat, level.”  He moved his hands, palms down, in a semi circle around his body.  “The light.  Oh, the light.  The light was everywhere.”  He raised his hands palms up.  “Then everything changed.  The ground split and rose up.  The woods began to grow.  The wind tore at the earth.  There were places the light couldn’t reach.  New creatures were formed in the darkness.  The battle began over the new world.  The world became darker and darker.”

          “What made the world change?” 

          “A word.”

          Jane felt she had missed the point.

          They spent the night wrapped in each other resting only when the sun began to shine again.  When Jane opened her eyes Foss was gone.  She waited a week before she gave up hope of his ever returning.

          “Don’t worry about it honey.  He ain’t worth it.  They never are.”

          “All you need is to fix yourself up and you’ll find somebody else, darlin’.”

          “What’s your order?”

          “I’m glad he’s gone.  He was no good for you.”

          “And what is good for me Swift?”

          She was returned to her life and the ache in her feet.  She knew she shouldn’t have expected Foss to still be there when she woke.   He had found what he had been waiting for.  She had hoped, though.

          Then she realized that he hadn’t really left.  At the time of the month when the moon is full her tide didn’t flow.  He had changed her landscape.  He had given her hope.  Even over the passing months as she put more  weight on her soles the ache was not as bad.