Super Sally's Diner

Waning Harvest drained the last of his coffee.  The bitter ichor that Super Sally served at her diner could hardly be called java, but one didn't waste the days away at Super Sally's for the quality of the goods served there.

"Where ya think you're going, honny?"  Sally's uniform looked as if it were stolen from an Americana daydream of what 50s diner waitress would wear, and mated with a super hero artist from the same era.  Modern folk often confused the combination of kitsch and tights as some sort of fetish wear, but the real patron's of Super Sally's hardly blinked an eye anymore, least of all Waning Harvest.

As an older, forgotten super hero, his bright yellow spandex outfit was as out of place as that of the super powered waitress.  Looking around, Waning Harvest looked at elves and wizards dressed in all sorts of medieval grab, plenty of dapper men in sharp suits, space rangers in metallic clothing, ray guns holstered at their side.  Everyone was out of place here, so no one is.

"Same place the rest of us are going, Sal.  Lord knows we ain't leaving any time soon."  Sally smiled, pouring a fresh cup of the disgusting swill.

"Oh honny, I remember when you first came here, you would've had to been three flaps to the breeze to have said that way back when?"

Harvest pulled a long sip, letting the brown acid, cream and sugar, burn its way down his gullet.  "Yeah, I think everyone goes through that, though, at least when they first get here."

Sally turned to put the coffee pot back on the burner.  "Oh, You got no idea, honny.  I've it all from the folks when they get here.  Most just order a cup of joe, thinking they'll be getting their little hineies out of here lickitey split.  You were like that.  Some come resigned to being stuck here.  Ain't ever seen someone come in happy, though, you got that right."

"Not even you, darling?"  The exaggerate drawl got a giggle out of waitress.

"Quit it, you.  And even lil' old me didn't like it when I got here.  'Mazing Mandy was running this place though, and she was more delighted than a sack full o' sunshine when I came here.  Not many of us waitresses who get forgotten to begin with, and a super hero one at that?"

They shared a laugh at that.  The door opened, an a blocky approximation of a person walked in.  Everyone in the diner did their best to look at the new comer without looking like they were looking.  Waning Harvest waved the new guy over.

"Video game, I take it.  Don't get a lot of your kind around here, seems like no one forgets you guys these days.  Have a seat, if you can."  He motioned to the garish orange stool next to him.  The video game character was made of distinct colored blocks, from across the diner it gave a relative image of a man but up close the difference in the pixels were jarring.

"Uh, thanks, so, this is it, huh?  Super Sally's?"  The voice had the soft crackle of electricity.

"Bless my heart, he knows.  You doing alright, son?  Oh, wait."  Sally strode over to the window to the back kitchen.  "Put the bytes on, Franky.  We got us an 8-bit."  Waning Harvest grinned, the smell of the byte fryer was one of the highlights of being in Super Sally's.

"Sorry, sugar, gonna be a few before we can serve you something you can get down.  What'cha want, and I'll put a rush on it."

The video game character's face froze at first, trying to process this new bit of context.  "Burger'll be fine.  Will remind me of an old buddy of mine...".  He spun on the counter stool, scanning the diner as if his friend would have ben unlucky enough to be there with him.

"You don't want your old friends showing up down here...er, what's your game again, son?"

"Just call me Iggy."  His voice soured as he spun back, dejected at the failure of finding his desired target.

Waning Harvest set his coffee mug down and leaned closer to Iggy.  "Waning Harvest, also known as Sullivan Moon.  So, you want to talk about it?" Iggy looked up at where Sally was, but saw the waitress already moving down the counter to check on the other customers.  "Don't have to say anything, son, if you don't want to, but talking helps."

The super hero and video game character sat in silence for a few moments.  Around them the clattering of mugs and plates were staccato accents on the concerto of a million diner conversations all happening at once.

"32 year old graphics designer.  He was the last one, the last real one, you know?"  Iggy spoke up after many long moments.  Waning Harvest nodded.  "He'd play 'Iggy's Runabout' at least once a month, had for the previous 5 years after finding the old games in his parent's attic.  He died in a car crash a few months ago.  I think I knew once he was gone it was only a matter of time, but it seemed like others still thought of me."

Waning Harvest nodded.  "Yeah, I ended up here pretty much the same way.  Me and my sister, Waxing Harvest..." the super hero pointed to a booth were a lady in her mid 20s sat wearing a similar yellow spandex costume.  She waved when she caught the glances of her brother and the new guy pointed in her direction.  "...yeah, we've been here for a while.  Only had a few comic books to our name, but we were some of the first black super heroes in print.  We weren't the first, though, and since we never stuck around long enough."  Waning shrugged.  "One guy was really into all the old African American comic heroes, he kept us around for a long time.  Cancer finally got him, and in moments, boom, here we were.  Forgotten."

Iggy processed that for a moment.  "You don't seem bitter about it."

"I was, son, for a long time.  Was just saying to Sal before you showed up, everyone here is bitter, there'd be something wrong with you if you were.  We were created to entertain, to be characters in someone's work, and when you're officially forgotten, when no one's thought of your or cared about you, when you end up here, yeah, that's right bound to make one bitter."

Waning stood up, motioning to Iggy.  "Let me show you around, though.  We have plenty of time here, unless your game gets remade, or my comic gets turned into a movie we're here forever, Super Sally's Diner of the Forgotten.  But it's not as bad as it sounds.  Plenty of folk, always a new face to see.  It may not be what you wanted, but it's the best way to spend never being remembered again!"




(Where do ideas go when they're not being thought of anymore?  Where do all the characters in our stories, movies, games, books, what happens to them when we don't feed them our imagination?  I'd like to think they're at Sally's having an eternal last drink)