Strangers

material for fiction, and he had decided to stay a couple of days to familiarize himself with it and to brood about story ideas suitable to the background. He had not left for Mountainview, Utah, until Tuesday morning, the 10th of July.
        Now, he turned slowly, studying the scene in the fast-fading light, hoping to prick his memory. As he turned, he became convinced that what had happened to him here was more important than anything that would ever happen to him, anywhere, as long as he lived.
        The diner, with its big windows and blue neon sign, was at the western end of the complex, detached from the motel, surrounded by a large parking lot to accommodate long-haul trucks, of which three were in attendance. The entire length of the single-story white motel was served by a breezeway sheltered under an aluminum awning that glistened darkly with a well-kept coat of forest-green enamel. The west wing had ten rooms with glossy green doors. It was separated from the east wing by a two-story section that housed the office on the first floor and, no doubt, the owner's quarters on the second. Unlike the west wing, the east wing was L-shaped, with six rooms in the first section, four in the shorter arm. Dom kept turning and saw the dark sky in the east, the interstate dwindling into that gloom, then the immense and uninhabited panorama of shadowed land to the south. More plains and mountains lay in the west, where the sky above was streaked crimson by the sunset.
        Moment by moment, Dom's apprehension grew, until he had turned in a complete circle and was looking once more at the Tranquility Grille. As if in a dream, he moved toward the diner. By the time he reached the door, his heart was hammering. He had the urge to flee.
        Steeling himself, he opened the door and went inside.
        It was a clean well-lighted place, cozy and warm. Delicious odors filled the air: French fries, onions, fresh hamburger sizzling on the griddle, frying ham.
        In dreamlike fear, he crossed to an empty table. A ketchup bottle, a squeeze-bottle of mustard, a sugar bowl, salt and pepper shakers, and an ashtray were clustered in the center. He picked up the salt shaker.
        For a moment he did not know why he had picked it up, but then he remembered sitting at this very table the summer before last, his first night at the Tranquility Motel. He had spilled a bit of salt and had reflexively cast a pinch of it over his shoulder, inadvertently throwing it in the face of a young woman approaching behind him.
        He sensed that the incident was important, but he did not know why. Because of the woman? Who had she been? A stranger. What had she looked like? He tried to recall her face but could not.
        His heart raced without apparent reason. He felt as if he were on the brink of some devastating revelation.
        He strove to recall additional details, but they eluded him.
        He put the salt shaker down. Still moving dreamily, shivering with unfocused anxiety, he crossed to the corner booth by the front windows. It was unoccupied, but Dom was sure that the young woman, having blinked the salt out of her eyelashes, had come here that other night.
        "Can I help you?"
        Dom was aware that a waitress in a yellow sweater was standing beside him and had spoken to him, but he remained spellbound by the tantalizing ascension of some terrible memory. It had not swum into view yet, but it was rising, rising. The woman out of his past, whose face remained a blank to him, had sat in this booth, radiantly beautiful in the orange light of the sunset.
        "Mister? Is something wrong?"
        The young woman had ordered dinner, and Dom had gone on with his meal, and the sunset had faded, and night had fallen, and- No!.
        The memory swam out of the deeps, almost broke through the murky surface into light, into his consciousness, but at the last moment he recoiled from it in panic, as if he had seen the horrible face of some monstrously evil leviathan streaking toward him. Abruptly not wanting to remember, refusing, Dom loosed a wordless cry, stumbled back, turned away from the startled waitress, and ran. He was aware of people staring, aware that he was making a scene, but he did not give a damn. All he cared about was getting out. He hit the door, flung it open, and rushed out under a post-sunset, black, purple, and scarlet sky.
        He was afraid. Afraid of the past. Afraid