Goats from Lambs

Chapter 6

"You need anything else, hun?" The question snapped Victor out of his trance-like stare out of the window of a local diner.

Suddenly coming back to the table he was sitting at, he saw a young waitress standing impatiently, with one hand on her hip, the other holding a pot of coffee that smelt about three hours beyond burnt.

As she chomped on a piece spearmint gum that had been as over-worked as she had, the black sludge in the pot danced around rhythmically to reveal the ring of where it had most recently settled.

As she stood there continuing to chew her gum, Victor suddenly realized her eyebrows were raised, as she was still awaiting a response. Doing his best to force a polite smile, Victor finally answered, "I'm fine," before discreetly scanning her nametag, "-Thanks, Dot."

'Dot' couldn't have been more than 26 years old, though she carried herself, and looked as unrested as a waitress of 40 years, though her bravado was complimented by the painful wisdom of an old soul that floated deep in her eyes.

While her nametag prominently displayed her supposed moniker in the familiar block letters of a cheap label maker, Victor suspected it was merely an on-shift pseudonym. Whether it was to hide the shame of working in a dump like this, or to shade her from some kind of painful past, was tough to tell. Regardless, she certainly didn't look like a 'Dot'.

Victor fiddled with the rosary he had brought from his room at St. Christopher's when he saw Dot catch a glimpse of it. Her not-so-subtle reaction showed that she had clearly conflicted feelings about faith. This wasn't anything new to Victor. Similar to many of the younger members of the community that Victor had worked with, why wouldn't she question faith's validity?

It wasn't that the younger generation feared religion so much as they didn't see the point in it. After all, they had been born into a world where they had been taught to question everything. Why should religion be any different?

Maybe religion was becoming obsolete. After all, the ability for one to be all knowing had shifted over the years from a quality that was previously only possessed by deities to anyone who currently had access to a cellular phone.

When combined with the older generation's endless bastardization of their own beliefs to serve as a catalyst for their misguided political and social agendas, it was no wonder the younger generation could only see the hypocrisy. They had been told that religion would provide solace, guidance, and peace but all they ever saw was a source of blanket judgment towards their fellow man, resulting in heated arguments in the best of situations.

Dot cut through the awkward silence by hesitantly inquiring, "So, are you some kind of priest, or something?"

Victor searched for the most polite wording without getting into the details, "I was, sort of. It's a long story."

With that admission, Dot's shoulders relaxed a bit as her hand came off her hip and gently touched Victor's shoulder. The pained wisdom in her eyes shone through once more, as the tone of her voice revealed more than her words ever could, "We all used to be something."

Victor looked up at Dot, both impressed and sympathetic towards her morbidly truthful insight, turning his smile from merely polite to utterly sincere. Victor placed his open palm on the cracked red-vinyl bench to lean over and reach for his wallet as he said, "I think I'm ready to settle up."

Dot quickly dismissed the request, "Don't worry about it. This one's on me."

Victor gently protested, "Please, I insist."

Dot looked Victor in the eyes softly, "It's only a couple coffees. Plus it'll make an otherwise shit-day worthwhile for the both of us-" Dot quickly covered her mouth, as her eyes popped open at the realization she had cursed in front of a man of the cloth, "-Sorry."