I took my grandfather out for his birthday. Neither of us wanted to dine together, but since he was alone I insisted.

We don’t have much in common, but after some torturous small talk about weather, we were finally able to come together by treating our waitress like total scum.

Jean-Luc Bouchard is a writer whose short fiction has been previously featured in Umbrella Factory, Danse Macabre, and Eastlit.