Summary:
A fictional story that was made based on a Painting by Edward Hopper.
In the small town of Charleston, an older, lonely man sits at the bar in a Diner. A young couple sat at the other end drinking coffee. The woman was dressed nice in a pretty red dress and the man looking dapper with his blue suit and hat. The older man is a regular at this diner. He arrives at the same time, sits on the same stool, and is always dressed nice as if he were about to meet someone. He never did though. The waiter knows the older man by name and says, "Hey Hopper, anything new today or just the same old, same old"" whenever he would walk in. Hopper would just shrug his shoulders as usual and sit on his stool. He looks at the couple at the end of the bar and nods, while waiting for the waiter to get him his usual drink, milkshake. The woman looks and smiles and then proceeds to watch all that is going on; not much at all.
As it got late the couple finished and left the diner. The woman smiled and said goodnight to Hopper as she left. Hopper didn't look at her but nodded his head up and down. As the couple walked by the large window the woman looked in again at Hopper with a disturbed and upset look on her face, but just kept walking away. As it got later and later the waiter told Hopper it was time to close up. Hopper again nodded; he reached in his pocket and pulled out a tissue, some change, and a paper clip filled with money. He paid the waiter and began to leave. The waiter said "Thanks Hopper, have a good night and I'll see you tomorrow." Instead of just facing the door and giving a wave Hopper turned around and said to the waiter "I don't know, I may not come tomorrow night." The waiter looked up from his register and said "Oh, alright, well the next night then, huh"" "Well, I'm not sure I'll be here then either" Hopper said. The waiter just looked at Hopper puzzled "Well alright then, I'll just see you around, goodnight Hopper." Hopper turned around and walked out the door.
Days went by and Hopper wasn't lying about not coming in to the diner. The waiter would stay open an extra hour each night just to see if Hopper would roll in. But he didn't. One night just as the waiter was about to close the woman from the last night Hopper was in the diner; showed up. She said to the waiter, "Hi, do you remember me"" "Yes, from the other night right"" "Yes, remember that older man that was in here the night I was"" "yes, that's Hopper, he's a regular, well he was". "What do you mean"" said the woman. The waiter looked at the woman and said, "That night you were in here was the last night I saw Hopper". The woman looked up and said "Well could he have gone away or something"" "No, Hopper is just a lonely old man who had the same schedule everyday." The woman looked very disturbed and said, "Well where do you think he is"" The waiter looked at her and said, "My guess is as good as yours." The two were silent for a few minutes when suddenly the newspaper boy threw the newspaper at the doorstep and it hit the door with a bang. The waiter went to the door and picked it up. He just set it on the counter and started to clean up. He looked at the woman and said, "You don't know Hopper do you"" "No, I just had a bad dream about him that night after we informally met" said the woman. "Oh well, I ought to get to my cleaning, we're going to close up soon." The woman sat on a stool and said, "Well would you mind if I sat and read a little bit of the newspaper before you close up"" "No go right ahead" said the waiter. The woman pulled the newspaper over and opened it up. As she skimmed it over she came across a photo of the older man. "Is this Hopper"" she said. The waiter came over and looked, "Why yes, yes it is, what does it say about him"" The woman looked up at the waiter with tears in her eyes, "He died," she said with a quivering lip. He looked at her with his eyes open as wide as they could be. "I can't believe it, it's like he knew he was going to die." "What do you mean, it was like he knew"" "As he was leaving the other night I said I'd see him tomorrow and he said that he wouldn't, and so I said alright, the next night and he said no, not then either." "Well my dream was that he got hit by a car and died" "What does the article say, does it say how he died"" The woman read through the article as fast as she could, Hopper, an older, well-known man here in Charleston, was hit by a car on September 8 on Shubert street around 2:45am. The car was traveling through Charleston at a normal speed of 30miles per hour. The driver said "We were just driving down the road when a man started to run across the street and stopped right in front of our car. I hulled on the brakes but I still hit him." The woman looked up from the paper at the waiter and said, "Do you think he stopped in front of the car because of shock or do you think he did it purposely"" The waiter just stood there with his face in his hand shaking his head. The woman said, "Well what do you think"" The waiter looked at her and said, "I think you should just leave, I need to close up." The woman looked at him and said "Ok".
She stood up walked to the door, turned and looked back at the waiter and started to speak, but she stopped herself and she walked out the door.
This is the complete article, containing 1,035 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
