I’m not famous so I never have to worry about whether I’m going to be recognized at a Waffle House, I think aloud, pulling into the parking lot. Maybe I’m too chronically online, the fact that I’m even considering this, while choosing a destination to use a bathroom, wash myself up a little, and, well, maybe eat a fucking waffle.

I already changed my clothes, so at least that part doesn’t have to be worried about right now. The clothes I was wearing are now stashed in an orange plastic bag sitting in the passenger seat, which is a shame, because I actually really like this plastic bag. It has one of those strange textures to it, I think because it’s one of those new recycled ones. And I quite like the color.

Orange bag in hand, I head into the Waffle House. It’s been years since I’ve gone to a House of Waffles, and I try to think about the last time it would’ve been. No specific date or memory comes to mind. Just a vague swirling collection of flashbacks, which tells me I certainly have been to one before, and that it was certainly a long time ago.

I really like waffles. I really fucking like waffles. No, like I really like waffles. Are they sweet? Are they savory? Yes! I actually really love breakfast food in general, but I also tend to be a late sleeper, so I never really go and get breakfast anywhere. I know there is technically the meal option of brunch, but I have borderline psychotic opinions about that as well, apparently like all of my opinions. Anyway, I am thrilled at the prospect of finally being able to eat some fucking breakfast.

Sit anywhere you like, one of the waitresses says while waving vaguely in both my direction and the direction of all space and time. There’s a handful of other tables with people at them. I try to stay clear of them all, and slide into the most innocuous booth I can choose. A menu glides across the table at me. I figure I should probably at least flip through it a little bit before rushing off to use the bathroom. I am conscious of avoiding looking like I’ve only come here to splash around in the sink.

Can I take your order, honey?, the waitress asks with a drawl, without looking up from her notebook. I feel like I’m in a film.

Can I please get a…. I flip back across the menu. Sorry, a sausage egg and cheese biscuit, hash browns, oh! And of course, a waffle. OH! And a coffee. A lot of coffee. A looooooot of coffee.

She offers a closed mouth smile, and takes the menu back from me. I am deciding how long is the proper amount of time before immediately standing up and rushing off to my true destination, the bathroom.

No way, is that you!?

Before I have even have a chance to look up and see who this floating voice is addressing, I hear my name fall out of it. My head snaps upward, eyes wide.

Oh my God! It IS you!!!

How the fuck am I being recognized in a Waffle House. 

Before the booth stands the most standard-issue girl I have seen in, well, years. Dyed blonde hair just past her shoulders, not too blonde, just blonde enough to fit in anywhere on the East Coast above or below the Mason-Dixie Line. Straightened to achieve perfect pin-straightness. Average height, slim weight, actually thinner than slim, aggressively straight and aggressively white teeth flashing what I can only assume to be a fake smile.

How long has it been? The girl asks in a way that is not a question, as my brain rifles through the explosion of filing cabinets inside of my mind, all of which feel like the equivalent of somebody rushing into my memories to kick over rows of giant organizational metal cabinets to have a field day playing amongst flying papers everywhere. Faster faster I think to my own brain as my mouth tries to buy us some time.

Ohhhhh my god! Hi!

It is clear from her body language that she is expecting me to stand up and greet her like a normal person. So I stand up, her arms already outstretched to hug me. I must fucking know her, I think, while simultaneously encouraging the brain to figure this out.

No, seriously, she says, pulling back from our embrace, leaving one perfectly pink-manicured hand on each shoulder, looking me square in the face. How long has it been?  

Oh my God, I say, trying to match her tone and personality as best as I can. I don’t know! But it feels like forever!

Rifle faster rifle faster rifle faster.  

Are you here alone? She asks, dropping her grip on my body and spinning her head in both directions before returning to its neutral position, focused solely in on me.

Yes. Are you?

No, no, my husband is over there, she says, waving to one of the booths I passed on my way in. I do not turn to look at who she is motioning to. I really don’t care. I instead offer a polite smile in return.

Yeah! So, I mean, we never come here, it’s… crazy to run into you here, she says, and I can tell from her face that everything she is saying is indeed true. I widen my eyes slightly to show I am listening, an affirming ‘mmm’ coming from my closed mouth, still politely holding up a small smile. I don’t know if she expects me to ask why she’s here. She definitely looks out of place. But I guess so do I, just in a different way. Pretty much the opposite way. I wonder what looks stranger, either one of us being in a Waffle House, or the fact we are paired together right now.

She takes the opportunity to judge my exterior. Why are you in all black? She says.

I have no idea how to answer that. I realize I am giving her absolutely nothing, but that is also because I do not want this conversation to continue. I want to get to the bathroom. I want to wash my face. I want to wash my hands. I want to throw my beloved orange bag away. I do not want to stand here and trade either compliments or questions or borderline insults with whoever the fuck this is.

Do you live around here? I decide to ask, avoiding answering the previous statement-question altogether.

No, we’re on a bit of a road trip, return to the old stomping grounds! You know! Is that what you’re doing too?

I don’t live around here either, I answer, which was not the answer to her question, but does seem to satisfy her quest for additional information.

So what are you up to these days? She asks brightly. It’s been so long, god, how long? You were so fiery back then, are you still all… you know… fire now?

Before I have a chance to even consider how to answer such a loaded series of questions, her facial expression shifts from eagerness to confusion, borderline concern. Oh, she says, reaching her hand up towards my face. I think you have some ketchup there or something.

The waitress appears on the other side of the table. Here’s your food, honey, she says, sliding it across toward me, one plate, two plate, three plate. Condiments. Coffee cup. I thank her, and she spins on her heels and leaves us, us still standing before the table, which is now covered in plates.

Oh! You haven’t… you haven’t eaten yet, the girl says, now looking at the food, then back to me. Then what’s the red on your face? Actually I see some in your hair and on your hands too….

Paint! I nearly scream. It’s paint, I repeat, this time at a normal human volume, smiling.

Oh are you an artist?

Yes that’s it! I almost scream again. I’m an artist! I cough, lowering my voice once more. I am… an artist.

What were you working on that looks so messy?

I smile, actually smile. Yeah, this one was a bit messy, I say. I really didn’t expect it to get so messy.

Actually, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you look so tired too. Were you up all night doing it or something?

I’m still genuinely smiling. Yes, keen eye you have there. They should really hire you in the fucking FBI or something.

Oh, I know how you feel, she says without elaborating or specifying what she is responding to. After a few beats she says, can you believe we used to stay up all night all the time back then? I don’t remember it killing me at all then, god how time changes.

I decide not to tell her that I left a party at 8 a.m. the weekend before. I also decide not to confirm to her I have not slept in about 36 hours as of right now.

Oh God, yeah, I say, what the fuck were we thinking? I see her flinch at the word fuck.

Anyway, I’ll let you eat your food! Her eyes flickering back-and-forth between the table and me. I hesitantly move my body to sit back down, unsure of exactly what protocol I am supposed to be following. Am I supposed to hug her goodbye? Am I supposed to set up a time to hang out? I still don’t even know who this fucking is. Just a vague reference of time that maybe, maybe we knew each other when we were students or something. But also, we could know each other from literally anytime period ever based off the facts that I know: that both of us used to stay up late. That does not narrow it down whatsoever.

Moving hesitantly was the right idea, for she comes in for a hug. Her died blonde hair smells delightful. I hate that I love how it smells.

I can’t believe I ran into you here! She says while hugging me. We literally never come here.

Yeah, I mean, me neither, I say.  

I’ll come say goodbye before we leave, she says, her fingers sprinkling a wave at me as she walks away. Before I can tell her that that’s alright, I’m actually in a bit of a hurry, I’m just going to scarf down my food like some kind of raging wolf and then I am going to get out of here — she’s already gone, flouncing across the Waffle House in her all-American apparel.

I flop back into my booth with a thud of relief, keeping an eye on what table she returns to. I am immediately glad I did not look before because by god he is everything I hate in a person, and I know that if I would have looked at him while she was looking at me, my face would have given that away. She sees me watching them and smiles and waves. I avert my eyes back to my plates, plural, pouring ketchup aggressively over the hash browns with one hand while the other holds up the sausage egg and cheese biscuit for me to gnaw bites out of. I wonder if she’s wondering why the fuck I’m at a Waffle House alone, in a state I’m never in, in a country I rarely visit. What does it matter really.

I proceed to inhale my food. I’m so distracted, it’s been quite the day and a half. I’m absolutely famished that much I know. My stomach growling led me to this establishment. You stupid bitch, I whisper at my abdomen, and I hear my stomach offer a wimp groan in return. 

I am conscious of the fact that I still really desperately need to wash up. There are certainly red splatters all over me. Now that I am in this grim fluorescent lighting, I noticed more acutely that my fingers are even perhaps dyed a bit red. The cuticles of my most active fingers are crimson. I flip my hands over to look at my palms, the lines of which now resemble a web of intersecting red rivers. I can’t even imagine what it is she spotted across my face and hair. Well, I can imagine it. I suppose that’s the problem. I shovel an enormous forkful of hash browns into my mouth. God I am so hungry. I look at the plate of waffles. I’m coming for you last, I say out loud to the plate.

As I’m hunkered down over my plates of food, like a fucking animal, the booth shakes ever so slightly, and I look up to see her beaming face.

I’m back! She exclaims cheerily. I stare at her, mouth completely full. I wonder what the fuck someone clearly this reserved, and thin, would eat here. I imagine she wiped the whole table down with sanitizer. She looks like someone who carries sanitizer. I don’t know why I think that’s an insult.

Oh, you were hungry! She narrates, as if on cue to annoy me even further. I am far too tired to keep up mirroring her or frankly behaving in any way besides merely existing. I take an absolutely inhumanely colossal bite of my biscuit sandwich, our eyes boring into each other. Her eyes are radiant, while I am dead behind half-closed eyes.

She relaxes a bit and kind of sinks into the booth, instead watching me in silence as I polish off the last remaining bites of biscuit and hash browns, pushing those plates one and two to the side, before pulling towards me my finale: my beloved waffle. Smearing butter all over it, I pour an avalanche of syrup on top. I point to it with the hand holding my fork like a weapon.

Do you want a bite? I offer. She shakes her head. I shrug, and cut into the golden brown. Neither one of us is speaking anymore. How is this an enjoyable activity for her. It is an oddly enjoyable activity for me.  

I finish my waffle and slam the remainder of the coffee. We are still in a strange thick silence. The waitress comes to collect the three plates, and tops up my coffee.

Well… I start. This was… fun.

She plants her hands on the table, almost slamming them down, elbows risen high, a look of intensity I did not expect from this demure, collected, polished princess of a girl.

Look, she says flatly, her voice suddenly much different, different enough to physically startle me. I know we didn’t particularly get on when we were younger, but that was a fucking long time ago. And I have a feeling we ran into each other for a reason. Don’t you think so? Don’t you think we were supposed to run into each other here, in a fucking Waffle House, in the middle of goddamn nowhere?

And what reason would that be, I shoot back.  

Well judging from the red that you so poorly wiped down from across your hair face and body, I would say, you’re covered in fucking blood. So, I think you’re probably exactly who I’m looking for. 

It’s not blood, I say with a half laugh, the words basically sputtering out of my mouth. She raises the fingers of one of her hands to motion for me to stop.

Yeah, okay, and I’m a natural fucking blonde. Look bitch — she lowers her voice, her hands quivering now in their firm, fastened position on the table, her eyes piercing into me — I fucking need out, I need out so goddamn bad. I’m not saying we have to kill him, but I need to get the fuck out of here. Are you going to take me with you or not.

I do not even bother to look back at her husband. Our eyes are locked together. Her face desperate, pleading, almost tragically, sad, but somehow fired up.

I reach into the back pocket of my black jeans and pull out $40 cash, tucking it under the coffee cup. I place my hands on top of hers.

Let’s go.

♥⛧ 𝔅𝔞𝔱𝔥𝔱𝔦𝔪𝔢 ⛧♥

If they make monsters of men we must make terrors of ourselves.

I have an insatiable lust for blood.

I sit in my house, legs splayed wide on the wooden floor, the sun blasting through the windows as a train screeches along tracks within eyeshot and earshot, twirling a knife in my hands, closing my eyes to feel the distinct weight of the blade versus the handle, flipping it over, and over, until it is an extension of my hand, a new growth that I am the first to develop, a simple evolutionary need for these monsters, for every monster needs a slayer.

I practice throwing it at the white walls. I grew up throwing knives. I apologize in my head to the walls, for they have done nothing to deserve this, but, as I explain to them, I cannot practice outside, for I live in a city, and I cannot risk (1) hitting something living or (2) being carted off to some other white-walled room much less pleasant than this sun-dripped one.

Have you ever cleaned blood out of a bathtub?

The first time I cleaned blood out of a bath was easy enough. I stepped into the porcelain The red liquid oozed down my breast bone, pooling in my belly button, dripping down my thighs until it made little ski slopes down my shins and calves. Red circled the drain, changing color as it diluted itself with the hot water, fading from darkness to light, much as I had felt that night’s actions had done, faded some darkness into light.

There is still a spot of blood on the ceiling above the shower. It would be so easy to clean but I like it there. I’m not sure whether as a reminder or a warning.

The next time, I rented a hotel room specifically for my monster slaying. I did not want to taint, literally and figuratively, my own bath with delicious redness.

There was so much more blood to clean that time, my body morphing from its natural warm-undertone honey beige to scarlet, a crimson person emerging from the lagoon. Leaving red footprints as I fetched a bottle of cremant from the mini fridge in the bedroom.

There is no more euphoric bath than bathing in the blood of your enemies.

However, the cleanup, not so ideal. I’m a horrendous cleaner at best, anyone can tell you, it’s really not my strong suit. But it’s rather important for this type of work. I was a novice at the time, and did not account for the sheer amount of grout that was in this particular bathroom.

If you are ever to follow in my bloody footsteps, let me warn you, choose your bathrooms wisely.

Do not choose one with teeny tiny tiles all over the walls with white grout in between them.

Anyway so there I was, hot with blood and hot from the bath and hot from the bottle of bubbles I slammed, on my hands and knees scrubbing fucking blood out of about oh I don’t know thousands of tiles. I wore down all of my nails. After about three hours I no longer saw red, and went to bed. The next morning, I turned the lights on in the bathroom, and it was like one of those scenes from a horror film, fucking blood still everywhere, my eyes had apparently stared at the color for so long I had neutralized it and didn’t see it any more the night before. So another three hours of cleaning and I thought, well, that’s as good as it’s going to get, and stole all the now red towels, and fled that hotel. Safe to say I am very much not welcome back there.

I tell all of this to you, dear reader, for I am curious if you are a monster or a slayer. If you’re like me, please, come to me, and I’ll teach you how you too can grow a knife from your veins, forged of your own heartbeat and their blood. I await your reply.

But If you’re a monster. you’d better start running. Monsters think they’re a darkness but they’re merely a shadow. I am the night. I will swallow you whole and leave no trace. Nothing but a drop of blood on my lips. And maybe on my ceiling.

Mary Morgan (@msmarymorgan), resident final girl, is a writer, artist and academic. Her PhD thesis, I Want Revenge, focuses on violent women on screen. Originally from Buffalo, she now lives in London. Her preferred state of existence is naked, covered in blood, eating cake. Or maybe waffles.

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