Once upon a time, there was a waiter.
A hidden man, a fugitive from the world,
Not that he wanted it that way, but that’s how he was.
Alone, escaped from the world.

For much of his life, he lived to serve a small restaurant in his village.
From this village, only memories remained for some—or myth for many others.
As for the restaurant… well, no one even knew it had ever existed.

It happened that, on a certain day, the lonely waiter woke up with a sudden urge to serve a banquet.
He stood up and looked around at the rubble surrounding him—what had once been a very comfortable room.
His room.
A question floated in the air… Who would the banquet be for?

He had made up his mind!
He would gather everyone he could to serve a banquet of…
Of what exactly?
He had nothing to serve…
No matter! He would find something!

Excited, he dressed in his finest clothes—the least moth-eaten—combed his hair with a five-toothed comb, and sprayed a generous amount of air from an empty perfume bottle onto his neck.
Then, off he went in search of his great mirror.

And he searched long and hard.
How badly he wanted to find that mirror!
But he couldn’t.

Then, his memory stirred to life once again.
Something ached inside him, and a polar chill coursed through his veins, flooding the almost-empty chambers of his heart.
He no longer owned a mirror, and he didn’t because… it was completely shattered.

There had been a certain day…
Yes, a certain day…

“Ah…” he said, thinking briefly, as his nose suddenly clogged with the sudden urge to cry.
“Come on now… Chin up!”

And off he went—the waiter—anxious for his banquet, waiting for friends he would never see again, for customers who would never again drop a single coin into his cash register.

He left his room convinced he had forever forgotten about his broken mirror.
He ran toward the door of his restaurant and rang—loud and hard—the bell he had rescued from the church that had been destroyed just down the narrow street.

As soon as they heard the sound, they would come—his customers.
That’s how it was… the last time.
And so it would be now.
So he waited.
He waited until the sun set once more and, with an empty, rumbling, aching stomach, he said goodbye to the restaurant.

He reached to turn off the lights—but there was no need.
They no longer existed.
He went to close the door… but only pulled at what remained of it.

He climbed the stairs to the second floor.
There, he managed to hide as safely as he could, protecting himself from the dangers of the forest at night, and went to sleep.
Harsh reality did not appeal to him.
It was time to sleep and live his dreams.

Maybe tomorrow he would eat…
Maybe tomorrow he would find them…