Felixentric

Scene 5: Overdose on Coffee to Stay Sane

Quinn sat in the diner staring at his half-written novel and realizing he might have to scrap it for a third time. Turns out he made the protagonist a bit more sinister than he'd anticipated. While there were many likable villains in literature, he hadn't met anybody who liked a dicky superhero.

He sighed. He could try fixing the smaller details of the hero, try extracting the hero's better qualities, or just throw the whole thing away in the next trash can he spotted and cease his writing career altogether.

When a man on a stool by the diner island bumped his coffee all over his newspaper, Quinn laughed. That guy has the right idea. But instead of drowning his draft in his own cup of coffee, Quinn shoved the pages in his bag. In its place, he pulled out a separate folder, filled with more documentation-like pages and a blank notepad.

Motive: Find weird shit in Jupiter City and publish it in the newspaper.

Outcome: Get paid.

All sections of Jupiter Times were titled after Jupiter planet's many moons, Quinn's after Themisto - the ninth moon, which was discovered in 1975 but was subsequently lost until rediscovery in the early 2000s. Themisto was the odd moon. How subtle.

Though Quinn's discoveries and research were revolutionary to other global regions, none of them made the front page anymore. Odd things in Jupiter were old news to the people who lived there.

Quinn tried to work on his journalistic duties, but the lights above the tables flickered and flared, complicating his focus on the pages. The windows didn't give much help, either, because the street lights were too far away to reach his pages through the green-black and musty air.

Even aside from the lights and hard breathing, he couldn't keep his attention on the work.

At first, his gaze only wandered, until a petite blonde - not a woman, but a tiny teenage boy - sat down in the booth ahead. His back was turned and he had his hand in his hair.

Something about the way the boy moved his hands and let his fingers shake through the coarse strands made Quinn want to introduce himself and question the hell out of him. Have you discovered anything odd today?

He didn't get up, though. The boy ordered breakfast, ate half of it, paid, and left.

Quinn wished he'd gotten up right as the bell on the door was ringing to indicate his departure.

"Have a good one," the lady behind the counter yelled, monotoned.

Maybe Quinn could talk to her instead? The blank pages said yes. He raised his hand for another coffee, and she nodded on her way over.

"Do you ever feel like a servant, the way people work you?"

She stared at him for a second, as if a rhinoceros were running down the street behind his head. "Sure is a funny thing to ask, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but if I don't ask it, who else will?"

"I'm not sure anyone has to. You do realize I'm getting paid for this, right?"

Quinn shrugged. "Doesn't mean much. The job could still wear you down. It could be awful, but you do it anyway, right?" The same idea corresponded straight to being a journalist or any other job. Working kills your soul somewhere, even if it's a good job.

"A job you do for money is for money. It doesn't define you, just keeps the house warm and the fridge full." Her eyes sagged, but she had to be younger than twenty-eight. How did she get so wise?

He nodded, but wasn't impressed this time. Being a writer definitely defined Quinn - what he put his attention on, what he did in his free time, and why he had the social skills of a ham sandwich.

"Anymore stupid questions?" the waitress asked with a joking, but honest note.

He tried to smile back, but it fell short with how tired he was. "A billion."

She lowered her voice. "Well, I have two seconds before one of those guys at the counter dumps his coffee again. Make it quick."

Quinn huffed. This was where he found the boundaries of his work, not in a diner but in other people's stories, ideas, and actions. "Eh, it's fine."

The sides of her eyes crinkled in a half smile, a pitying one. "How about one question per coffee refill?"

Though guilt prodded at his gut, he agreed, only because he wouldn't get anywhere if he didn't have anyone around to inspire him. He could have chugged the cup and asked for more, but he let the waitress go and peered at her from a distance.

He liked putting his comprehending eyes on people. It was soothing. Influential. It would be easy to say that all good writers were also good stalkers. They had to perceive to understand, think, and even act on their own.

Quinn kept their conversation rolling in his head, even when the waitress walked into the kitchen and was out of sight.

He tried to stop acting this way, staring like an interested dog. He gave his papers another glance, but the lights got worse and he couldn't keep his gaze inside the windows.

He noticed a newspaper sitting abandoned at the next table. In most cases, he would have attacked it, hungry for worldly knowledge and insight. But there was so much shit going on in Jupiter City in the last few months, he might burst like a balloon.

He guessed the front page would be about murders or the all-legendary, banefade theories. And when he shuffled over to the paper and picked it up, he was right. "MORE PROOF ON WHY A BANEFADE IS JUPITER'S COLD KILLER."

"Ungkh," he groaned, then flipped the page around.

"QUIXOTIC GETTING LAZY?" He groaned again. Quixotic, the fire guy. He had a lot to say about that one.

"I'LLOOZJHEN UNSIGHTED; PLANNING SOMETHING NEW?" A final groan. The loudest, too.

Superhero stuff was too real and too stressful for a good story. Another reason to throw his novel away and not start again.

The waitress came up to Quinn's booth in her stark, yellow dress, held a pot of coffee in the air, and threw a questioning scan at his half-filled cup.

He pondered the effects of caffeine on his rambling brain but nodded despite.

When he didn't jump on asking her a question, she asked if he was alright.

Steam rose into his face with a musty smell as she poured. He almost melted. Almost. Her eyes were dark and soothing and her voice was soft. He almost slipped and told her where his mind had gone. But so few people wanted reminders of the supernatural beings, so he shrugged and lied, "Just getting tired." I want to write the book that will make my research on Jupiter's oddities important, but I'm getting tired of the oddities as much as anyone else. "I guess I just need more coffee."

She raised her eyes curtly and joked, "I have the right to cut you off for any reason, including addiction."

He tried smiling, but it fell short.

Instead of taking his cup out of his hands, she turned back to the counter and said, "I'll go brew another pot."

Quinn chuckled as she walked away. When she crossed behind the bar counter and turned her back, he threw himself into the paper again. He flitted between the articles, trying to catch anything he'd missed. Something that would lead him to banefade in a way that no one had looked for yet.

He tapped the side of his coffee mug with his fingernails, though, the fingers shook from too much caffeine.

"What are you working on these days, anyway?" the waitress called from the counter.

"Research on how I'll catch that Banefade, give the city his truth, and finally kill him."

"You and me both, kid."

This was right before the screaming erupted from the art museum across the street. Quinn threw enough cash on the table to pay for at least ten cups of coffee and sprinted outside.