Narvine was half asleep when the doors vibrated from its sudden impact with wall. Her eyes pierced the air aimed at the man who had invaded her cafe at such a late hour.

“You’ll never believe it,” the man said shaking the rain from his his overcoat. The two customers who had been sitting quietly enjoying a pre-shift pick-me-up slowly look up from their mugs. The man steals a moment of eye contact with the lady closest to the door and saunters over trying to kick the water from his trousers. “I was just sitting there,” leaning down to the customer’s face, “just sitting! Normally I doze off this time of night. It’s not that I don’t take my job seriously, but you try staying awake with no conversation, no tv.”

The man turns away from the lady and heads straight for Narvine, “I can only read so many books. So yeah I doze off. It’s not that I don’t take my job seriously.” He sits down exhausted at the bar.

“There was something we weren’t going—“

“Right!” He jumps from his stool and stumbles toward the other customer - a man who had gone back to his coffee, “There I was. It had been an incredibly long night already. The hours I’ve wasted sitting and staring at nothing. And that’s what happens every night. Nothing. But tonight,” he looks at the man with the coffee, “Listen to this! Tonight was different.”

“Are you going to tell us,” the customer grumbles, “actually I don’t care. Narvine! What time is it?”

“Narvine! Narvine? What a beautiful name,” the boisterous man shifts his gaze back onto Narvine. “You must here that all the time. My name is Bob. B-O-B or backwards B-O-B. It’s so boring. Some nights I write down all the names I wish I was given at birth. It’s a long list. I mean, what else am I going to do? I take my job seriously and writing is a hell of a way to stay awake. At least my name isn’t Francis. Francis is such an old and outdated name, but Narvine. That is…you should call your parents and thank them.”

Narvine is looking at him as if he might have something interesting to say, but probably not. Then she leans to one side, “Francis? It’s one-thirty.”

“Hey, Francis. No hard feelings I hope,” Bob says as he flies over to the man’s table. “You didn’t pick your name and what do I know I sit and stare at the wall for a living. My name is one letter short of boob.” He shoots a look at Narvine, “Not that I have anything against boobs. I love boobs. I mean, not your boobs. Well honestly you have amazing boobs, but when someone is called a boob. Well, they’re saying the person is dumb or unpopular. Where was I? Right! There I was and suddenly I’m not alone. Two people bust into my lobby. That alone is more action than the lobby has seen in all my years manning the circular desk.”

“Did these two people do anything,” the woman by the door asked.

“They shot each other. I couldn’t believe it. It was like a—“

“Where do you work, sir!” Narvine screamed over his ramblings, “what lobby do you sit in?”

“The Pint. It’s just 2 blocks east of here. You can probably hear the screams if you step outside. It was so loud. It’s why I came down here. This is the first place that was open. After the busted in…”

Bob continued talking, but Narvine was already on the phone with the police.

Neither of the dueling men survived.