(Gasping)Thank god. I thought I was going to freeze to death out there. My car spun out two miles back. Are you serving? Todd doesn't move. He slowly shifts his eyes to Gary. TODD (Sighs heavily)Yeah. We are. Unfortunately.
Arthur looked at the security monitor. His own face stared back at him—grainy, gray, and hollowed out by the overhead fluorescent grids. He realized he couldn't remember what he had eaten for dinner, or if he had eaten at all. He reached under the counter and pressed the button to chime the store intercom.
The neon sign buzzed with a sharp, electric hum, cutting right through the midnight drizzle. It didn’t say "Open." It said , custom-ordered by a franchise owner with a cruel sense of irony and a legal obligation to keep the lights on until the sun came up.
Inside, Arthur smoothed down his polyester vest. The fabric was so thin it felt like wearing a plastic grocery bag. It was 3:17 AM. The air smelled of burnt, day-old hazelnut coffee and floor disinfectant that failed to mask the scent of damp cardboard.