Danny bit his lip, chewing on a French fry, and went ballistic.

He hadn’t considered a moment’s angle before releasing his tray’s contents to the floor in dramatic gestures of insecure violence.

Slowly, a throbbing pain at the point of the bite calmed him, rewound him, and drew his focus to the scene he had caused.

It was late to recant, his breath short, anxious, almost desperate to escape his life, he slunk over to the corner of the booth and stared blankly into the space.

If he could lean through the wall, some quantum fluctuation landing dreamlike, a lottery winner, he’d roll off the bench smooth and ride off, wandering toward another chance at redemption.

That’s what gnawed at him; he was moving away from chances each time he ran or compromised his agenda out of fear.

He felt even smaller now.

Patrons startled into watching saw him leap aggressively from his seat and bolt the premises, and just as it was, only a short time before, the hum of eaters soon began again.

The quiet pressure rolled in and out like tides, and he navigated a wrecked ship that remained floating, unaware of what was transpiring where the decks emptied into furnaces and boilers.

His greasy mind resolved to finish the job his hands could not understand.

So he walked, in an awkward fashion that betrayed his lack of a plan, and sought out company when he should have been grinding. Needs that hold you back, compulsions for the wrong kind of company.

The long game rusting, decaying structures sinking into new hills and making more earth with flocks of starlings performing in the sky theatre. Shifting fields of tall grass and nostalgia, or was he remembering something he had seen in a film? It too was not clear.

He was lonely. Again. The time lingering and his wanting to go home, but unsure that home ever existed or what it was actually, stark against the recollection? Where did it go? Anybody will do sometimes.