Dear Diary | Proxies

i. chocolate chip waffles

Dear Diary,
I can't tell if they're real or hallucinations

There is a small patch of grass outside of my house that led directly into the woods. Normally, it was a welcome sight. I had taken to feeding the deer, raccoons, and strays that came, but recently, it felt strange. It wasn't a necessarily bad feeling – just strange. It felt as if there was someone watching from the dark, not hunting, just watching. That was it.

Sometimes, like today, I swore I could see a silhouette, sometimes more than one. Today was different. I was used to hallucinations, having already been diagnosed with a mild form of schizophrenia – along with many other things – but there was something almost different about the shape. It stood there, unmoving, watching. The only thing I could make out fully was the brown tufts of hair glinting in the moonlight, forming a head of unruly hair. It almost looked as if the shape was wearing goggles too, the tops of it reflecting just enough to make out the shape, but that was all I could see.

I stared at it for a second, almost willing it to move, and as if answering my thoughts, it's head threw itself to the side, as if twitching, before it went back to stillness.

My hallucinations were never this vivid, even barely being able to see him. I was used to people I could see halfway through, a voice whispering gently in my head, the ever-present feeling of someone standing somewhere I could clearly see there wasn't anyone standing. They were never this real, but maybe they were.

I leaned back a bit and closed the curtains, double-checking that all my doors were locked. This would be an issue for another day. I had work in the morning.

"Welcome to Waffle- oh, good morning, Juniper! You're early!" Margaret's cheery voice was a welcome sound as I trudged through the entrance to the small restaurant. Waffle House, any southerner's treat for 3 a.m. benders when there was nothing else open. I was a good fifteen minutes early, knowing the others would be late, and I would have to pick up the slack.

"Good morning, Margaret. Good business last night?" I slipped past her, trailing my hand across her shoulders as I passed and waving at the cook.

"We got slam-fucking-packed," Jeremy, the cook, spoke, shaking his head. "You'd think it would have been slow for a Wednesday night, but a few churches went crazy after service, I guess."

I grinned at that and stepped into the back. "At least you got business. We're going to be fucking empty all morning!"

A customer gave me a stern look but said nothing. He was the only one there at the moment, all other booths empty and cleaned. My manager gave me a grin as I stepped close to the tiny, closet-sized excuse of an office. "Counting the drawer?"

I nodded, giving a bright grin. "As always!"

"I don't know what I would do without you, June." She set the money onto the desk, and I hopped onto the stool, pretending to think about what she had said.

"Who knows, probably cry. You'd be like 'where's my favorite employee? Where has she gone?'" I pretended to cry for a second before devolving into giggles that she returned.

"Well, go ahead 'favorite employee.'" She held up air quotations before walking away, laughing at my loud 'hey!' that followed her.

The restaurant fell into a soft buzz, the only chatter being from the server and cook as she finished up the last of her cleaning. He was trying to get her to go with her to a party that she wasn't very interested in. He had developed a crush on her the day she started working there four months ago and hadn't let up on his advances since. She denied, even though it was obvious that she was interested as well, claiming she didn't have time for a boyfriend.