The man walked into the restaurant just a few minutes past seven. Most of the waiters knew him as he'd been frequenting the restaurant unfailing every evening for about a year, so in a way he was one of their most consistent customer. He kept mostly to himself, was polite and simply sat in his usual corner, made his order, ate, spent a few minutes sitting after eating, paid his bill and left. Only to show up again the next evening.
Even the manager knew of him and at first he'd tried to make conversation, but immediately discovered the man wanted to be left alone. So it became an unwritten rule that no other customer could take the table in the corner once it was almost seven pm, and no one was to disturb the man in the corner. Although they gossiped and tried to piece together who he was, no one knew his name or anything about him, so he simply became THE MAN IN THE CORNER.
But something unexpected would happen in a few weeks that would baffle the employees at the restaurant. They'd come to expect the presence of the man in the corner and in a way he felt like family. But just as strangely as he'd appeared over a year prior, one day he simply ceased to exist in their lives. With no one to ask, and no way to find out what might've happened, his mysterious disappearance amongst them soon became an unanswered question.
It had been about seven months since the man in the corner was last seen. The initial few weeks after his disappearance had been rife with speculations, and even the manager left a standing order to keep his table free for the duration the man usually spent whenever he came in, but like everything in life, everyone eventually had to move on.
Jane was the new employee in the restaurant and only a week into her stay, she found it weird that customers were never allowed to seat at the table in the corner every evening, particularly when it was close to seven pm.
She eventually thought to ask her colleagues why, but everyone kept mention the man in the corner which made absolutely no sense to her. Or was everyone except her going nuts once it was seven pm everyday.
She eventually thought to ask the only person who seemed otherwise sane so far. Jane decided to ask her Manager Pete.
'Hey Boss , so I wanted to ask....." Jane asked Pete the question one morning, and in no time Pete told her the story of the man in the corner, everything they knew, didn't know and how he suddenly ghosted one day. Although Jane found it weird that the whole restaurant went to such lengths to respect someone who had been gone for awhile, she at least finally knew her colleagues weren't silently sipping from some fountain of craziness every evening.
Time passed, and the restaurant decided to open a social media page to better boost their popularity and improve business. Jane was chosen to manage the page and come up with ideas to make it a success. During a particular brainstorming session with her colleagues, she decided to show them some them how good she was at taking pictures. She was scrolling through her gallery when one of her colleagues suddenly screamed pointing at her phone.
"What's the matter with you?" Jane asked.
"The man just now... the one you just swiped with the RIP written, that's the man in the corner" her colleague eventually managed to say.
The noise and the subsequent conversation had gotten the attention of everyone present, even Pete was out of his office wondering what the noise had been about. Jane again swiped back to the picture on the screen of her phone.
'You're telling me this man is the man you've all been talking about?". Everyone now dumbfounded could only nod in the affirmative. "But that's my Uncle Max" Jane exclaimed.
From the disbelief mirrored on the faces of her colleagues, Jane realized they were probably waiting for her to yell the words PRANK. It took a few minutes and a few other pictures of her and her uncle to finally convince them that she indeed knew the man in the corner.
Jane had to eventually tell them the story of who Max was. Uncle Max was a war veteran who had served his country as a soldier for most of his life. A lifetime spent enjoying the company of those colleagues he had come to refer to as family was only shattered as he equally lost most of his comrades in a raid gone foul. He eventually retired, but settling into civilian life became quite difficult for him.
Having stayed unmarried, Max had no wife and children and the only family he had left was that of his younger brother. Doctors had diagnosed him with symptoms of PTSD and just to help him reconnect socially, Jane's Dad had decided it would be better if Max moved in with his family.
Everyone had believed it would be a great idea, but unfortunately Max didn't settle easily. Max was always out of the house, never bonded with the family, and for sometime didn't eat dinner anymore with his brother's family. Jane's Dad hadn't thought much of it, believing that Max probably preferred eating out for dinner. Max has simply gone to bed one night and didn't wake up the next morning.
Just as Jane finished her story, she could see the both her colleagues and Manager in tears. They'd somehow been involved in the life of Max without really knowing him. But Jane on the other hand was smiling with tears in her eyes.
Although from the stories she'd heard from her colleagues before, no one had been able to really communicate with the man in the corner. But she knew he must've felt at peace here, for him to have come back everyday. For over a year, this people had subconsciously been a family to him.
For her he would always be her Uncle Max, but he could from then equally be the man in the corner.