11:47 on a Friday night. The effects from a popular energy drink were finally beginning to wear off. He’d been going straight for about 13 hours, stopping only for a 30 minute lunch earlier in the day & a brief nap before the evening had really kicked off. Otherwise, the transition from morning to evening had been a steady blur of different strangers’ faces asking to go from here to there. Up until a couple of hours ago, the customers were mostly silent. This gave him time to reflect. Lots of “what ifs” & “shoulda/couldas” toyed with his mind. A trip to the other side of town gave him plenty of time to venture down paths not taken in life, imagining where THOSE might have taken him. The question lingered - “Would that have still brought me to where I am today?”

Pondering these thoughts certainly helped time pass, and before he knew it, night had come. With all the younger riff-raff out & about on a Friday evening, he needed his wits about him.

“Time for a smoke break”, he thought...