A Face Unknown

The air was dank. Damp and still, like a sheet slick with the sweat of a nightmare hanging, solemn and limp in the silent trembling vigil which follows. The shallow pools of water on the midnight street glimmering the reflection of the steady ‘Open’ sign. The only sign on the block. There were no apparent sounds in the air. No drunken laughter mingling with clinking of glasses surging out of open doors late in the night. Just the faint humming of a fly’s wings as it was trapped beneath the lights that cast a dim yellow glow the color of a weary callous.
A light scribbling sound entered the air as a man at the counter attempted to wash away what he had just written on a paper napkin with a pen from his hotel room. He grumbled unintelligible somethings to himself and took up the coffee mug from the counter with a tired hand. He peered into the cup and –to his dismay- found it half full. So he took a measured sip, swirled it around a bit, and threw it down the back of his throat. He set the mug down with agitation surrounding the action. He looked back at the storefront window to see if there was something he was searching for.
And a man stared back at him with contempt in his glassy yellow eyes. He slapped a dirty hand to the glass and smiled cruelly. It was a smile that said simply, ‘I won’. And then he removed his hand from the glass and backed calmly away into the night. The man at the counter stared after him with uncertain curiosity.
Who? What? Why?
He looked at the door where the waitress had disappeared so long ago. He wondered where she had gone. Then guessed she was smoking in the back alley as people have been known to do.
So then, only slightly shaken by the appearance of the man at the window, the man at the counter picked up his coffee mug once more and swallows the last bit of lukewarm coffee with those yellow eyes resonating on his mug.
The man at the counter blinked away the image and pondered the silence with a thoughtful fist under his chin. He stared out the window once more.
The light pole that had been out moments before flickered to life, revealing the man with the yellow eyes staring through the glass.
And then an immense sound filled the air. The sound of flames rising, swelling, billowing into the streets like great red plumes of blistering velvet. And then came the surreal, muted tinkling of glass rain falling to the pavement.
And then nothing.
Nothing but the silent contempt of a face unknown.