[center][b]New York. November 3, 2015[/b][/center]

Imagine a room... rectangular in shape. Plain walls painted in a peculiar off white color that tickle your eyes. Not exactly white... but not entirely anything other than, it just simply was. Florescent bulbs that hang in rows from above illuminate the ceiling and make the room itself glow. On one side are two adjacent windows where the sun drifts lazily inside while the other holds a single door... the only way in or out. Propped on the far side is a large plasma screen, ominous almost, staring down at you playing images that you neither understand or want to understand. Although it stands what seems like a football field away, you can still feel the heat off it's surface. There in the center of the room lies a table, blacked rimmed, plastic lined with paper likened to wood. It stretches the length of the room, stopping just shy of the tube. On either side are dark cushioned seats with wheels and in these seats are men and women. Sweaty, weary, cold... trapped. They're all looking in one direction: Away from you... away from him.

He sits restless as he does most days in the office where his hours are spent on his ass. He left leg draped lazily across his right, his right hand twiddling with a number two pencil, his left lying on the arm rest of his chair. His head remains motionless but his eyes swing left to right and right to left desperate to find something to hold. His breathing is a little too steady for his liking. It's slow, patient, waiting... as if his body had decided to sleep but his mind is awake. In this state of restlessness his eyes begin to bounce from one person to the next all of them seemingly as restless as he is. Their arms are crossed or splayed or tied behind their heads. Some of them are twiddling with pencils as he is, some of them pulling lazily at the corner of a slip of paper. Some are scrawling notes among the rest of the unintelligible noise covering their pages. All trying to remain cool, calm, collected. There's this heat beating down on them all making the room not just stifling but wholly uncomfortable to sit in and while they try to ignore it... he simply has to. It's become a part of his life, to sweat and sit and watch... shit. Listen to the droning on of people he never truly cared about and try to collect their words and put them together like a puzzle. He hated it and so did everyone else and yet, here they all were.

[b]"These people..."[/b] He turns to look at you. [b]"Business men and women. Powerful and yet here we are crammed in this little room staring up at some television like it has all the answers. They spent years for this. Studying, cramming their tireless brains with information that they'd never use and all this only to remain a step ahead of the next man."[/b] His smile widens as he lets out a soft chuckle and steals another glance at the room full of suits. [b]"Idiots. Too busy looking toward the future to realize whats happening in front of them... to busy to notice that the man next to him has been there step for step... And I haven't looked at a single book."[/b] He looks back at you holding the same smile. [b]"I'll let you in on a secret..."[/b] He says as he jabs his pencil at you. [b]" I have a peculiar taste... an appetite of a different kind if you will. You see I crave people... the way they think and act, display themselves in public as opposed to the way they show their true selves in private. You want to know whats the most fascinating subject in the world?"[/b] His pencil is now turned toward the rest of the room, the tip being jutted in their direction. [b]"They are. Every one of them... different... unique... like your favorite dish but different every time. Take the man on my right for example."[/b] You both turn toward him. [b]"Elderly man with graying but styled hair, wrinkled skin, tight lip and a visibly brown nose. His suit is tailored to fit him for every inch he's slaved for. Expensive but not nearly as comfortable to wear as it looks. The collared button up squeezes at the neck and is pressed further by that brilliant red tie holding it all together... a gift from his daughter no doubt. There's stiffness around the shoulder every time he leans too far to the left or right, the right arm hesitates before every move and the left... it's remained where it was since he's taken his seat. Same for the pants which are just shy of being too short. They're black just like the rest of the suit with nay a single thread out of place. The shoes, shined one too many times, have been tapping against the rug unceasingly. The lace which he's failed to hide, tumbles about in the air with every lift of his foot, the knot keeping the leather in place loosening ever so slowly."[/b] He pulls your attention back to him with a tap of his pencil. The elderly man turns as well, his foot holding still as he does so before continue when he's turned back toward the screen. [b]"Maybe military. He's fought for everything he's gained, ate the ass of everything he couldn't and now he sits one the edge of what he calls the epitome of his life... right on the fence where he could finally hold in his hands what he's been looking for or... somehow in some spectacular fashion lose it all. He's nearly seventy although he doesn't look the part. Years of discipline prepared him for that: How to look like you haven't worked your entire life for a title... And for what? For the man he's been staring at across the room? Oh... don't tell me.[/b]" He looks at you with a sly smile spread across his lips. [b]"You didn't think he was staring at the television the entire time. You really believe he tied those shoes himself and left the threads out like that? Please... he's too disciplined for that and the scent on his nose [i]is[/i] ass."[/b] He rolls the pencil in between two knuckles, catching it between his index and middle finger. Rolling causing the pencil to twist in hand. His smile holds as he slowly tears his gaze from yours and places it on his next meal.

[b]"Now her... She's something else entirely. Beautiful blonde hair, straight at the root, curled at the tip framing the smooth silk skin of a young female body. Her lips: Full, blood red, parted slightly. Her nose doesn't bend, it curves back and meets the eyes in the middle. The eyes... well they're looking at something else... Let's fix that."[/b] As the pencil spins between his fingers, he pulls the tip down toward the surface of the table and breaks it. The lead is torn from it's wood shell and bounces to the side before dropping to the floor. The noise draws the attention of a few in attendance, the elderly turns to look at him as does the woman. [b]"Green. Green eyes."[/b] He holds her gaze and refuses to let her look away. Seconds pass before anything happens but then suddenly a change begins and you see it... and he feels it. Blood begins to rush to her cheeks, the corners of her lips begin to turn, there's a slight trembling under her skin. Her breath quickens which in turn makes her chest rise a little more and strains the blouse obscuring her form. The blouse itself... it's formal yet loose but just so. The "V" cut in the center isn't large enough to reveal anything but it's just enough to tease the imagination, to hint at the shapes underneath. It blossoms at the bottom and seems to fold into the dark skirt that clings to her thighs. Ending just above the knees, her slender legs slide out from underneath, like the soft dunes of dessert hill billowing past her calves and ending at a curve just above the ankles. Soft, silk like sand... Like a dessert... a dessert in need of rain.

[b]"How long since it last rained...?[/b] He seems to ask with his eyes to which she replies [b]"Forever..."[/b]

[b]"You see, she's only just begun her journey, her climb through life although she's taken a particularly different path from our friend here."[/b] He gestures toward the elderly man once again who seems to have already forgotten his presence. [b]"Young and beautiful. Holds herself in a different light in this very room... or at least tries too. Focused, strong, professional. In private, she's probably soft, distracted, maybe dreamy... maybe a slut. Physically she's fit, clean and most of all..."[/b] He turns toward you, leaning in as if to share another secret. [b]"...She's delicious. Something to worship and at the same time punish. She'll do anything to move forward... perhaps... feed my appetite."[/b]

The tapping against the floor suddenly stops and he gestures for you to look. Turning, you see the elderly man has noticed that the laces have come undone. Grunting silently, he bends over slowly and takes up the stray ends in his weathered hands. The woman doesn't notice, her gaze still on our friend as her lower lip disappears into her mouth and her teeth clamp down seductively. She's pulled her hair to the side giving you both a better look at her face, her cheeks still a rose red, her eyes searching for something you can't see. The man, whose still bent over, works with routine hands, feeding the tip of one end through the loop created by the other before pulling on both and tightening the fresh knot. He slides a thumb across his work, wiping away the dust that wasn't there and tucks everything away and out of sight. The finished product is clean and refined just as it has been for the past seven decades. Your friend smiles, his eyes still on the woman.

[b]"It's time to eat my friend."[/b]

The elderly man begins to straighten himself out but having misjudged the distance between himself and the edge of the table, slams the back of his head. The entire table shakes violently as he stumbles out of his chair and falls to the ground unconscious.

[b]"Daddy?!"[/b] The girl rises to her feet, dashing around the entirety of the room while the others look on in confusion, unable to move. She drops to his side lowering her head next to his and listens for anything. Breathing... maybe a heartbeat if she moves to his chest. In her bewilderment she fails to recognize the latter and yells for another to call an ambulance while she attempts CPR. However, with his weight on his back, his ability to breath is hindered simply by one thing, that brilliant tie around his neck. The beholden man, who had sat across the room is the last to stand up, almost as if to fight the urge to act as the man's daughter had for fear of discovery. His hands grip the edge of the table itself, his knuckles turning white while he covers the gaping hole in his face with the other. 

[b]"He can't do anything nor can the daughter for both are too stupid to realize the truth of the situation. He's about to lose everything he's worked for and the're going to kill him. Luckily for them both..."[/b] He looks down at the woman who looks up at him, tears forming in her eyes as she realizes just how helpless she really is. 

[center][b]"...I'm hungry..."[/b][/center]

Suddenly the room begins to shift. The lights flicker violently above. The table begins moving on it's own stripping stacks of paper and stray pens from it's surface and tossing them into the air. The chairs begin to crumble, the wheels pop off and roll away as the fabric seems to burn without flame, curling up on itself and turning to an ash grey. They break apart and tumble to the ground in pieces followed swiftly by the table. The paint on the walls begin to peel, turning from the off white into a charcoal black. The television slips and crashing to the ground, the windows burst, the bulbs fall and break, the people disappear and finally... the dust settles. What stands before you now is a radically different room, one that's been scarred by fire, abandoned and forgotten. On the ground in place of the woman is a single can of peaches. It's colorful surface stands out in the dark room, the metal lined top glinting in the sunlight slipping through the windows.

[center][b]"...Jesus I'm hungry..."[/b][/center]

[center][b]MIssouri. November 3, 2017[/b][/center]