It was mid morning, and the patrons of The Sunflower Diner had already made themselves comfortable.

They chattered over the soft jazz from the vintage jukebox, voices lifted by the rising steam of hot coffee. Eggs and bacon sizzled in the kitchen. The owner, a cheery middle-aged man with a receding hairline, stood behind the counter engrossed in conversation. An infant at a corner table laughed as it spilled a bowl of scrambled eggs onto the floor.

And a woman sat alone at a booth, smiling to herself she sipped the last of her coffee.

A large backpack sat across of her, poised upright as if another patron of the establishment. A digital camera, film camera, notebook, pens, and a few plates lay scattered on the wooden table. She absentmindedly swiped at a crumb on her lips, dabbed her hand on a napkin, and resumed thumbing the arrow buttons on her Nikon. Photos which she’d taken in the past couple months flashed in quick succession: old, young, middle aged people of various genders, race, political alignment—some in their homes, the streets, in cafes—any space they chose and felt that they could be intimate in. She paused at a photo of two women sitting side by side, loving gazes fixed on each other, made soft and unearthly by candlelight outside the frame.

“Hi, ma’m," A voice chimed to her right, "anything else for you? More coffee?”

After a beat, the woman at the table smiled and said with a indistinguishable lilt, ”Yes, that'd be lovely. And the check, please.”

“Sure thing.”

She placed the camera on the tabletop and leaned back, peeking out the window. Northampton was a lively city known for its counterculture, youth, and politically liberal leanings. Its personality announced itself the moment she arrived; she had been invited to a concert by the same lesbian couple that had helped her fix her car on the way here. She’d later interviewed them, delightfully surprised to find that they were the co-founders of an queer artist commune in the city.

The woman absentmindedly smoothed out the fabric of her longyi, a traditional Burmese wrap. It was adorned with an orange floral pattern with velvet blue lining that muted with the years, but retained a grace that her mother oft likened to “the spirit of our tiny, resilient country.”

She glanced up with a gentle thank you when the waitress dropped the tab and more coffee. Traveling had been easy on this side of the states. For the past couple months, she'd stayed with friends and family up and down the east coast, but the rest of America was a friend waiting to be made. She had never witnessed the deserts of Central US, the wild coasts and crags of California, the towering redwoods and graceful pines and grand mountains—this must have been how the first American pioneers felt, she mused, beyond their inhumane treatment of millions of Native Americans.

She stared out the window and thought of the past weeks; of the people that had welcomed her into their homes, of the all-too-human suffering and happiness she was privy to, and of future friends that would inevitably humble her.

The west was calling, and it was time to go.

He wondered how, if he'd lived his whole in a desperate bit to break from the norm, to be unpredictable, he'd ended up being both semi-normal, and predictable. His days blurred together. The same job for a year and a half, the same apartment for close to two years, the same diner for seven months, and the same regular order for six. His life had stability, order, and it was driving him mad.

God forbid, it felt like he was settling down.

He loved his coworkers, didn't mind his job, was comfortable in his dwelling, and had nothing to worry about. That worried him. He'd moved away from his hometown, dropped out of school, to be a badass anarchist who answered to no one, not a slightly pretentious Democratic Party voter who paid his taxes. Surely, his high-school self was weeping.

He blinked his already-strained eyes, staring at the dim laptop screen. A blank document. It had been blinked when he'd gotten home from bartending that morning. It was blank when he walked into the diner when it opened, and it was no less blank now. Sometimes, he'd write a few words, then immediately delete them. When he'd started writing, writer's block had seemed almost like a myth. He'd written tons of material, back then. Stories, of varying length and quality. He'd been at it for years, and had managed to publish one profitable piece of writing. It was a novel, out of print now. It hadn't even sold past the advance, which was enough for one month's rent, beer, and cigarettes.

"Why do I only have existential crises when I'm sober?" He mumbled to himself. He groaned, and closed the laptop in frustration. He rubbed his temples, and looked down at himself. If he were seventeen, he might've looked trendy and counterculture. Faded jeans, a near-threadbare Streetlight Manifesto t-shirt, and a three-year-old pair of skate shoes. He didn't even know how to skateboard.

He packed up his things and walked to the counter.

"Check, please?" He asked, quite obviously comfortable with the waitress he was speaking to. She was older, older than him at least. Grey haired, rail-thin.

"Aw, hon, leaving so soon?" She smiled at him. He sighed.

"Yeah. I've got to get some sleep." He said, accidentally yawning for effect. She nodded, and walked off to get his check. He noticed, then, the girl he was standing next to. He'd never seen her around. Not at the bar, not at the diner, not on the street. Normally, he wouldn't have thought twice about her, but after his previous lamentations, it seemed self-defeating to pass up a possibly interesting conversation with a possibly interesting person.

"Yo." He said, holding out his hand. "You're not from around here, are you?" He smiled a little. "I like to think I've got a pretty good handle of the patrons here, and you're not a regular, far as I can tell." He cleared his throat. "I'm Thomas. Thomas McClellan."

Anis made a beeline to the front counter and slotted herself in the back of the line. She breathed deeply, fiddling with the crisp bills her hands. The smell of eggs and bacon was still thick in the air, and as the waitress walked by, so did the aroma of coffee.

The ring of the cash register brought her attention to person in front of her—she was overwhelmingly short in comparison to the skinny man. She took a small step to his left, and then saw the old woman behind the register. The old woman’s face was warm, the type of warm that is usually reserved for our friends, or those that we’ve shared a secret or two with. She went away, taking her warmth with her, and Anis was almost sad to see her go.

A hand jutted into her line of sight.

The sounds and smells of the diner were all that really registered. She stared at the hand for a moment, disoriented. The double stacked pancakes were really getting to her.

She looked up into green eyes. It was the tall man.

"You're not from around here, are you?" He smiled a little. "I like to think I've got a pretty good handle of the patrons here, and you're not a regular, far as I can tell."

She smiled her mother’s smile and grasped his hand for a few shakes, “no, I’m not. I’m Anis, from Philadelphia.”

"I'm Thomas. Thomas McClellan."

“A sharp eye, but also not too hard to tell, no?” She laughed as they released hands. "I’ve been here for a week, but I'm going westward. But what about you? You’ve lived here for a long time or—?”

Her energy was rekindling; the coffee and pancakes and eggs and greasy things working their magic, and a wave of journalistic energy washed over her. She considered this her superpower: anything which promised a story—which was everything, but some things stuck out like beacons and she trusted her journalistic sense—she wholly attuned herself to.