The diner was nearly empty, Joe had timed this precisely so that they would arrive to the quiet of the waitstaff sweeping floors and filling salt and pepper shakers.

He had been working at the diner for six months as a dishwasher, always claiming the morning shifts so that he could revel in the “night life” that seemed nonexistant among the fading lights of the city. He jokingly refered to himself as the “Dishmaster” only to get a repeated scowl in return from Madge. Joe usually threatened her back with the idea of making tshirts labeling him so.

She would shrug off all of him dim-witted ideas with a slight turn of the head signalling her distaste for Joe’s seemingly bad humour.

Madge always wondered why he took her out to the place where he worked, yet always realized it was the only interesting place to go in town that wasn’t frequented by the norm of society. Besides, they had the best coffee she had ever tasted, which brought her back on one a many occassion.