Bottle it Up

Chapter Two

Something about small towns is suffocating. The heat constantly battering against your skin didn’t help that. The obvious reason would be that it’s so small, and you’re confined, but it really isn’t that. The buildings rarely exceed two stories, and the center of town could hardly be considered as condensed. Small building sparingly set up around wilting pieces of grass. The only thing that was abundant was the people milling around in the center.

Tiny clusters walking down the street, and slipping into shops. Laughter and shouting carrying to my ears as I slowly made my procession down the street, taking in the scene. Just moments before I was questioning if I had been put in some sort of an isolation experiment. Now I welcomed to a flourishing area of life. Hendrix now had life to it in my mind. It wasn’t just a lifeless creature. Now the little town had blood coursing through its incredibly humid veins.

I didn’t say a word to the passing people. I simply returned their smile, and looked away before they could ask further. I found myself looking at my shoes more often that usual, finding a little spec of something blue I hadn’t noticed to be there before. I also took my stride slowly, looking at the building with the intensity of someone who actually cared.

All of the buildings were mainly brick, but they all seemed to have some wooden detail somewhere in the structure. There were no modern buildings, or statues spread throughout (unless you counted the man with a gun in his hands, who was remembered by his bronze statue next what appeared to be the grocery store). I admit it’s a cute town, but being cute can only get you so far in the far in the world.

You need substance to make it, and the town so far was lacking that much. Aside from the occasional smile I hadn’t experienced the famous southern hospitality, and I would lie if I said I wasn’t disappointed. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for, given I’m the not the type to chat up strangers with hard to dissect accents, but I felt a pang when I realized I wasn’t going to get anything done walking back and forth down a hot strip of concrete, passing by the same people and stores every few minutes.

I had memorized the names of the stores on Main Street, although I only knew a sliver of what the shops actually held within. There was a bakery when you first stepped onto what was considered Main Street, and a convenience store at the end. A few shops were scattered in between, and overall the setup reminded me of a novel by a romantic. A person who thought the South could somehow speed up a relationship. It was true the heat may make the guy take his shirt off quicker, but I doubted the weather could be more helpful than a game of strip poker.

Talking about the heat didn’t help though. With each thought of the muggy air I was surrounded by, the little diner was becoming more and more of a feasible possibility. I wasn’t much of a fan of the food their kind of restaurant, but right now I could settle for simply a glass of water with that annoying hospital ice that everyone but me seems to love.

My feet stopped for the first time in the past half hour, and I turned my body towards a place that oozed with small town appeal. There were plenty of diners in the city. P probably more so than in smaller towns, but the way that diner was set up gave away it was located somewhere below the Mason-Dixon line.

Never less, the sight of that fan whirling through the window gave me hope, and I was soon standing in the interior of ‘Macy’s Diner’, my neck prickling from the change of temperature. Inside the smell of eggs and bacon was overwhelming, even though it was two in the afternoon.

“Waiting for anyone?” A voice asked, aware that eating alone probably wasn’t the most often occurrence here. I gulped and gave the petite blonde a shake of my head. “Oh, then would you like to sit at the one of the stools?” she asked, and I looked over to the G version of a bar, and nodded. I followed her closely as she picked up a menu, and stole a look over her shoulder, suddenly feeling embarrassed because of the pitying look.