Hatched Read Free

suddenly embarrassed.
    “I’m a stupid fuck,” he thought. “Watching the world as though it were entertainment—entertainment, diversion.” He looked down again at the shattered egg, now congealing, and sighed.
    “Maybe it is!” he ejaculated, this time rather loudly. He lifted his gaze and looked again at this man in black. “Yah, sure,” he laughed to himself, in answer to a question he hadn’t even formulated. “Funny, very funny you asshole,” he thought. “Very, fucking funny.”
    Jude half-rose in his chair as though to leave, or perhaps to measure his height relative to hers, or his, but then sat back down again. His bleach-and-wear, faded denim jacket caught the side of the table, giving his fork cause for a backflip up and full twist. With the pride of a routine well executed, it flipped over once more and crashed down onto the floor, brushing his ankle on the way down, most probably egging up his pants. Befuddled, Jude didn’t know whether to follow his stare or to look down to acknowledge his gaff. Before there was time for any existential resolution, however, Tina, the maîtred’, emerged from the kitchen, hearkened as by the sound of a dinner bell. She looked at Jessica, at the man at the door, then over towards Jude, and then back to Jessica.
    “Saved!” thought Jude. He reached down and picked up the fork, so as to avoid the embarrassment of having Tina clean up after him. The idea of being regarded as a menacing lunatic by two employees of this restaurant was too much, even by his own rather loose standards.
    “Jess, thanks, I was just out back,” called Tina to Jessica as she walked towards Jude’s table.
    “Jess,” thought Jude. “Not Jessica. Jess. They must be close friends, or . . .” He felt aroused at the thought that these two women might be more than coworkers.
    As she approached Jude’s table, Tina dropped her gaze downwards, towards her long fingers, which she now extended as though to examine the color of her nail polish. There was no point in giving this young man the impression that he, or the mess of eggs that lay before him, were of special interest. Then as she neared Jude’s table, Tina looked back towards Jessica who, drawn by the figure awaiting her at the door, had begun to exit the restaurant. She suddenly turned back and looked anxiously towards Jude, as though she had suddenly remembered something she had meant to do.
    “Good luck!” she called out. Her voice pierced the restaurant, boring an aural hole through a space that contained only a faint hum and muffled jangling from the kitchen. This abrupt exclamation was the product of a purely professional instinct. The guest, Jude, was as far from her mind as her morning toast; but professional obligation, including the constant quest for acknowledgment from managerial staff, was part of every job that she had ever worked. She now worked in the food service industry, an extreme example of this tendency, and had done so off and on ever since her first dishwashing job, at the age of thirteen.
    “Good luck!” Jessica repeated. “With the egg, I mean. And the writing!” She hesitated for a moment, a sign of both her distraction and her insincerity. She then turned back towards the man in black, and then back again towards Jude.
    Jude felt a sense of rebirth. He wanted to shout something back, but before he could think of what to say, she called out once again.
    “Break an egg!” came her cry, in no particular direction.
    Jessica’s announcement, echoing outwards to this mysterious man in black, Tina, and Jude, was so undirected, that Jude didn’t know if she was actually speaking with him or re-enacting a joke that could have been said a thousand times per shift in a restaurant devoted to the art of cooking and serving eggs. Suddenly, now orbiting within the atmosphere and gravitational pull of the man in black, Jessica drifted and then moved energetically towards the exit of the dining room. The dark