Still Life With Check Drop

The final course has cleared.
The candle flickers lower.
Your glass is empty by design.

You sit, suspended in the hush between the last bite and the first sigh. A perfect silence.
And then—
it arrives.

Not dessert.
Not thanks.
The check.

Tucked inside leather. Or faux leather. Or a folded napkin trying not to look like a transaction.
It sits there, quietly killing the mood.

There’s something oddly brutal about it.
Not the cost (you knew the cost).
But the intrusion.
The fluorescent return to numbers. To decisions. To splitting, signing, tipping.
While your palate is still holding onto a smear of sauce.

Restaurants try.
Some bring a mignardise. A final tiny sweet to soften the arithmetic.
Some pour one last pour, hoping you’ll sip your way back into reverie.
Some delay—long enough for you to forget you're waiting to be reminded.

But most don’t.
Most let it end not with a bow, but a balance.

Still life with check drop:
the candle, the crumb, the pen.

There are better ways.

Let the meal drift to a natural close.
Offer a moment—a final sip, a shared spoonful, a thank you said by someone who meant it.
Let the check wait for the guest, not the other way around.
Make the end feel like part of the story, not a door swinging shut.

It’s the last impression.
It deserves the same care as the first.