Maybe if he hadn’t been hungry. Maybe if she hadn’t been there that day. Maybe if a thousand tiny things had been different than they actually were. Maybe then it wouldn’t have happened.

It started as a normal day. There was nothing out of the ordinary when his first alarm went off, nothing with the second, and even after he snoozed it twice, the third didn’t give him any warning that this would be a totally remarkable day, after a series of a thousand unremarkable ones.

Dale had a steady job, friends that he could go out with at night, if he wanted to, and a place to call his own. That was just about the end of the list. His search for love had never been a fruitful one, and he looked hard - underneath every rock and behind every closed door.

He also had a crush. He had loved her from the moment that he first saw her and he swore to the gods above and whatever lived below that he would love her until he breathed his very last breath.

Jenna wasn’t without her faults. He didn’t idolize her, like so many men did with the ones that they loved. For one, she didn’t love him back. That was at the top of the list of red flags that gave Dale pause.

She was, however, just exactly what he loved, flaws and all. Conversations with her were stimulating without being exhausting. She was funny and he could make her laugh too, which he didn’t always do. Dale’s mom had told him once to stop making jokes because he just wasn’t good at it.

And that’s not even to mention her beauty, which was overwhelming. The reason he had fallen for her at the first site was that he actually fell for her. He looked at her, the sun seeming to radiate from behind her - which he would later realize it was due to the large plate glass window - knocked him off of his feet. Or rather, a folded up piece of rug that he failed to notice did, he was so struck by her beauty.

Again, it’s worth remembering that it was for all accounts the most boring of days. Dale woke up. Dale took a shower. Dale spent hours dawdling on the internet because it was a weekend and what else was he going to do?

Then around lunch, he realized how hungry he was. He’d spent so much time browsing threads and watching YouTube videos that he had completely lost track of time and missed breakfast. If he didn’t get up and get to the fridge, he would miss lunch, too.

Standing at the refrigerator, Dale remembered something that had been nagging at the back of his mind all morning. He remembered why he hadn’t made himself any breakfast. It was because he didn’t have any food in the house. The fridge revealed to him everything he owned that was edible - a fourth of a bottle of ketchup that had been there for probably three years, two bottles of beer that he had just picked up when he should have been getting groceries, and a slice of yellow American cheese.

He ate the cheese without second thought, but that would only tide him over for a moment. He’d need to go out.

His wallet was empty, expectedly. Payday was next week and the bills had eaten up everything from the last one. If he ever wanted to get out of this hole of an apartment, he would have to start saving money.

Right now, though, he didn’t wanted to get out of this hole. He wanted to lie in it, to wallow in the mud and the murk, and most of all, he wanted a good old-fashioned American cheeseburger. With bacon. There would have to be bacon.

Dale shoved an arm under his bed and wiggled the tips of his fingers until they touched cardboard. He pulled out the box - a yellowing shoebox from shoes that he had long since thrown out - and ripped the lid off. Something in his mind rushed him along, pushed him forward. He would look back later and wonder if it was fate.

Inside the shoebox, Dale found a wad of bills and took out a handful. He counted enough for two cheeseburgers - his need was growing the longer he waited - and at least a medium french fry. If there was any leftover, he would splurge on the biggest cola the rest of his money could buy. He was practically drooling now. He wiped the sides of his mouth, just in case he actually was.

In the car, Dale pressed the pedal down as close to the floor as he could. He felt frantic about the meal in a way that he couldn’t recall having ever felt. The burger shop was only a few minutes away, but he hoped he could cut that time in half with a little creative speeding and a few rolling stops at the stop signs in between him and his target.

When he got there, though, his heart sank. The burger place was gone and the only thing that stood in its placed were a few charred walls and a lot of police tape. The cry that escaped from Dale’s lips was immediate and guttural. After it ended, even he was a little shocked that he had made such a noise. He needed this cheeseburger now, in the same way that he needed air or the same way that he needed more money than he could ever hope to hold onto.

That’s why Dale, in the middle of a Saturday, in the middle of back-to-school season, found himself in the Granite Run Mall. He loathed the idea of being around people, any people, but especially these ones. The consumers. The ones who would choose to come to a mall on a day like today and rub shoulders with others like themselves. They disgusted Dale, if he was being honest. He would have to take a shower at the end of all this, just to wash the filth of it all off of him. Just to wash the filth of them off of him.

All of that aside, the mall had the second best burger in town, or now, he supposed, the first. At least, they had the best of the fast food burgers. He wasn’t about to get one of those frilly things from the sit down restaurants that were popping up all around. If you couldn’t see the grease dripping off of it, staining the wrapper and the bag, then it wasn’t a real burger, or at least not one that Dale was interested in.

He parked his car in the structure on the top floor and stepped out into the hot summer air. It hit him like a slap to the face and he nearly retreated back into the cool air conditioning of the car. The burger though, and the bacon, made him push on. It wasn’t a desire anymore. It was a quest. It was his goal, his life’s mission.

The people were as plentiful as he worried they would be and when he got to Burger Bonanza, the line snaked around the restaurant and spilled out into the mall proper. He stood in it for just a moment until he decided that he would better use his time by walking around first, waiting for the crowds to get distracted by some glittery thing elsewhere and make way for his burger destiny.

Granite Run Mall was two stories and it looked, from up by the restaurants, like the first floor might be a little less crowded, so Dale started to search for a way down. The escalators were near the food court, and they weren’t the enclosed spaces that elevators were, so he headed towards them.

That was when he saw her. Among the throngs of terrible people who chose to spend their day in this hellhole, there was her. She was not like them. She was better than them. In fact, she was better than he was, and he was, of course, just so much better than them.

Maybe it was the hunger, or the boredom, or the need to kill at least few minutes of time until the line thinned out, but Dale decided that he wouldn’t talk to Jenna. He would, instead, follow her and see where she went. The idea of going downstairs to get away from people all but left his mind and he singularly focused on her.

She went into one of those stores that sells overpriced cosmetics that are supposedly made organically. He didn’t follow her inside because he knew he’d stick out inside, and worse yet, someone might try to talk to him about why he was in there. He wouldn’t have an answer. Dale didn’t want anything that they would be selling. He didn’t begrudge her too much for going inside, though. Society placed expectations on women. She was simply fulfilling her capitalistic role.

The next store she stopped at brought a bright glow to Dale’s cheeks. He followed her across the mall, to the far opposite side and watched her walk into a Victoria’s Secret. Again, he would not be following her inside, but from a bench outside of the door, with a newspaper he found in the trash covering most of his face, he watched her walk through the short aisles, scanning for …something. What she finally picked up was red and lacy and brought the redness back to his cheeks once more. He shouldn’t be watching her, but he wouldn’t stop. Or was it that he couldn’t?

He shouldn’t be watching her, but more than that, he shouldn’t be thinking what he was thinking. When she was in the cosmetics store, she picked up what he knew to be a bath bomb and it led his mind to her, in the bathtub, using it. He let himself linger there for longer than he should have.

Now, here, with her in this store, his mind was wandering further. He didn’t even try to rein it back in. He let it roam wherever it pleased, and it grazed out in those green pastures for longer than it should. When he looked up again from the newspaper, she was nowhere. He couldn’t see her.

Dale threw the newspaper to the side and leaped to his feet. Where was she? How had he let her get away? He didn’t realize it, but the bacon cheeseburger he had come for was now the furthest thing from his mind.

Just when he had given up, leaning on the rail, looking across and over most of the mall, he saw her on the floor below. She was moving quickly. Had she noticed him watching and was looking to get away? No, of course not. Dale knew how to blend into an environment. He was nothing more than a blank face in the crowd. She would only see him if he wanted to be seen. He would resume his pursuit.

If his timing was right, and it almost always was, he could take the escalator and fall right back in line behind her. He nearly pushed aside a small child and started descending slowly.

Had Dale looked down, or looked anywhere besides at Jenna, he might have noticed that his shoe was untied. Had he noticed that his shoe was untied, things could have gone differently for him.

At the bottom of the escalator, Dale took one step off, then went to lift his other foot and noticed that he couldn’t. That’s odd was the first thought through his head. He tried again, and again noticed that he couldn’t lift his left foot.

Dale looked back and noticed now that his shoelace had been caught in the teeth at the bottom of the escalator. He reached down quickly, stealing a glance around to see if anyone had noticed, and tried to pry the taut string free. Pull as he might, it just wouldn’t come loose.

The escalator kept pulling.

With Dale watching on, more and more of his shoelace began to disappear underneath the teeth. It wouldn’t be but mere moments until the end of the lace was reached and it touched his shoe.

He looked around again, this time hoping someone noticed him. He didn’t want to call out, but he was going to need some assistance to extricate himself from the machine.

First though, it might be better to take his shoe off, just in case. He reached for the rest of the exposed lace and pulled, expecting for it to untie with ease. When it didn’t, he pulled again, harder, but he still found no relief.

The lace was double-knotted. He could untie it, but it would take time, and as the teeth closed in on the edge of his shoe, he realized he didn’t have it.

Dale screamed now, like he had in the car earlier. High and piercing, all activity in the mall seemed to stop and focus on him.

“Help,” he called out meekly now, embarrassed that people would be looking at him, especially these people. No one moved to help him.

The edge of the shoe was now in the teeth and Dale found himself on the floor, unable to lift his leg. The motor in the escalator was too strong, and it was pulling him down.

When the first bit of his skin entered the escalator, Dale screamed again. This wasn’t a scream for help like it had been before, but of pain. He felt the skin tear from him, all in one piece. He felt the air beneath the escalator blow softly on the area where the skin had been.

He hadn’t, however, been prepared for what it would feel like when the escalator first got ahold of bone.

Dale had always thought of himself as strong, sturdy. He wouldn’t win an contests in machismo, but he might have been able to medal.

When he felt the first bone snap like a twig on the forest floor, though, all pretenses left him. He wept now. He wept as the escalator, or whatever was beneath it, consumed his foot whole and started its way up his leg.

His leg went faster than his foot had, probably because he had stopped struggling. He had to stop struggling. The pain had drained any ounce of strength he once had and he had resigned himself to the fate that waited beneath the floor.

Why were they looking on? Why would these terrible, feckless watch on as he was devoured before their very eyes? Was it that they had known he thought he was better than them? Was it that he was? Or had consumerism simply trained them to watch another be consumed?

His leg went down and then the other. Now the escalator was at his waist. It was gulping him now and he had just moments left.

Then he saw her. She was looking at him with a curious look, her head tilted just slightly sideways. In her hand, he saw the bag with the bath bomb, and the bag with the lingerie. He had none of the thoughts that he had earlier.

He wished, instead, that he had been able to get to know her. He wished, too, that she had been able to know him.

And then, as suddenly as he had been there, he was gone.