A New Beginning

    Colin was thinking about everything that had happened to him, the good and the bad, while he was staying in Gutshot, when he realized Lindsey had said something.
    “Sorry, what did you say?”  He asked after turning the radio down so that he could hear her.
    “I said, we’ve been on the road for hours now, and we never actually stopped to get somethin’ to eat.”
    “ Yeah.” Hassan agreed, “My stomach is starting to sound like that alien plant from the Little Shop of Horror.”, he said, then started doing an imitation of the plant.  ‘Feed me Hassan!’ Feed me!
    “Alright.”  Said Colin, laughing at Hassan’s poor imitation. “We’ll stop for food at the next exit.  It’s only about ten miles.”
    A few minutes later Colin saw the exit, and pulled off the interstate into a tiny town.
    “Heaven’s Bend.” Lindsey read aloud the sign, “I doesn’t look very heavenly, in my opinion at least.”
    Colin, although he didn’t believe in god or heaven85, had to agree.  The town seemed like a ghost town.  The buildings looked worn down from years of weather abuse and no maintenance.
    It didn’t take them very long to find the only place to get food in town.  Colin pulled into the tiny parking lot of Heaven’s Diner, which looked almost as beaten down as the rest of the town, and the three friends stepped out of the car and walked inside.
    The interior of the diner was surprisingly nice.  Colin had expected it to look just as worn down as the exterior of the building, but he was wrong.  The walls were covered with dark blue wallpaper and dozens of paintings.  There were five or six small tables, the same color as the wallpaper, spread around the room.  They chose a table near one of the windows and sat down.
    A young woman with long brown hair walked over to their table and handed them menus.  She spoke with a smile and a thick southern accent.
    “Howdy folks!  My name is Anne and I’ll be your waitress today.  What brings ya’ll to Heaven’s Bend?”
    “We were just looking for some dinner and the nearest exit lead us here.”, answered Lindsey, “What kind of food do you guys serve here?”
    “This is pretty much just a burger place, but we do serve salads also.  Can I get ya’ll something to drink while you take a look at the menu?”
    Colin, Hassan, and Lindsey each ordered a drink and Anne told them that she would be right back.

After finding what he wanted to order on the menu, Colin examined the paintings

   
85Because he believes they are irrational and there is no way to scientifically prove that either exists.
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on the walls.  They were real paintings, not copies that you would normally see hanging
up in a restaurant, and they were very well done.  He was looking at a painting of man and a woman sitting at a small table, laughing about something and drinking coffee, when Anne came back with their drinks.
    “There you go guys.”, she said, placing their drinks down on the table. “Do you know what you want to order yet, or do you need some more time?”
    They placed their orders and before Anne walked away Colin asked her who had painted all the paintings.
    “Most of them are my dad’s,” she answered,”but some of them are mine.” She pointed to the painting of the man and the woman. “That’s my favorite one.  It’s was a picture of my mom and dad when they were in high school.  My dad painted it for my mom after their wedding.”
    “That’s really sweet.” said Lindsey, smiling over a Colin, and asked, “Which of these is one of your paintings?”
    “Oh, I painted the one over there of the woman standing in the rain. That’s my favorite of my own paintings.”
    “Wow,” said Hassan, “That’s amazing!”
    Colin agreed.  The painting was of a tall, blonde woman in a pink jacket, standing in the street with her arms out and her face smiling up at the rain.  He had never really gotten the hang of art.  He was much better at reading and learning new languages, so he had always just pushed it away.
    “Well I better go get these orders ready before ya’ll get too hungry.”
    “She’s a really great artist.” said Lindsey after Anne walked back to the kitchen, “I wish I could paint that well.  About as close as I get to art is stick figures.” Lindsey laughed and then looked worried. “Oh, I should probably go call my mom.  I just realized that I never told her that I was leaving.”
    “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea Linds.” said Hassan, “I hope she doesn’t freak out and force you to go back or anything like that.  We don’t want Colin here to loose his first Not-Katherine quite so soon.”
    Lindsey laughed, then stood up and walked out the door to make the call.  Just as Lindsey walked back in and sat down, Anne was back with their food.
    “There you go.” she said, placing the food down in front of them. “Just holler if ya’ll need anything else.  I’ll be able sittin’ over there behind the counter.”
    As they started on their burgers, Colin asked Linsey how the call with her mom had gone.  He hoped it hadn’t been too bad, considering that she had made the call to say that she had left home without saying anything, and she was going on a road trip for some unknown amount of time.
    “She actually didn’t answer her phone.  I left her a message, so I guess I’ll find out what she thinks of the idea when she gets time to check her phone.” she explained. “And it’s getting kind of late.  How about we find a place to stay for the night after we’re finished here?”
    Colin and Hassan agreed that they would look for somewhere to stay for the night after they had finished eating.
    When they were finished eating, Anne came over to give them the bill.  Colin paid and asked her if she knew of a place where they could stay for the night that was close.
    “Well, ya’ll could stay here for the night if you want to.  We won’t charge any extra cost.  My parents are always willing to take in strangers if they need a place to stay for a couple nights.”
    The three friends looked at each other. Finally, they agreed to stay for the night.  After all, Colin thought, it worked out well once before didn’t it?
   
   

Author's Note

This was my final project for the book An Abundance of Katherines in Contemporary Literature. I had the choice between a few things and I chose to write the 'next chapter' for the book. For those of you that have read the book, enjoy. For those of you that haven't, I hope it isn't too confusing. :)
the little footnote on the first part just goes along with how the book was written

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

I like the opening chapter. Good description of location and the character making the story interesting. I like the conversation and the interaction between the people. A excellent opening chapter. Will there be more?
Coyote

[Forest Green]

Nicely done...a very convincing scene, with bright dialogue and wonderful details.

I like this very much..sweet.