"At Dupar’s Café" by Dylan Willoughby

He sat in an all-night diner. A waitress who resembled Bela Lugosi crept then flew towards him. He was reading Ibsen, which he regretted. The weekend was nearly at an end, which, if he had not been dead these past seven years, might have mattered. What is it about the reluctance of ghosts? Some must have thought there was allure in the sucking of a milkshake through a straw, its indelible sounds when you reached the bottom. But it was more and less than that. The perfume of the cheap booth seats, kids talking nonsense, the forever light.

Dylan Willoughby is a permanently disabled LGBTQIA+ writer, music producer, and photographer, born in London, England, and currently living in Los Angeles, CA.