One day there was this object of desire that people couldn’t work out. It seemed to be of some sort of delectable creation, and it seemed to be everything that everyone desired, and something that no one desired, but it was there.

People would look at this object and they would try to understand it. There was something as odd about it as there was enticing. It drew enough people in. It looked like a standard hamburger, but it was crafted quite well. It was balanced and layered and still and all sorts of fresh, and it didn’t seem to age. But it was just a standard hamburger.

Crowds came and went, but as they came they grew larger. The hamburger being where it was – sitting in a nondescript city in a space that was open, but perhaps not open enough – meant that, whilst crowds could grow massive, there’d come a point where traffic would become disrupted; where people wouldn’t be able to walk along sidewalks, and where business would not be able to facilitate customers if the crowds kept growing. However, the city officials didn’t care, for they too were becoming enthralled by this hamburger. They were captured and pulled within its appeal.

Those who weren’t were, understandably, becoming greatly annoyed by its presence and how it was disrupting life, for they just wanted to get on with their days and, if they had to pass near it, they’d not know if they’d have to contend with a large mass of people or not, for the crowds did not have a schedule. Some decided it’d be better to move away, and so did. They lived a more regular life at that point, and good on them for doing so. Some didn’t have the choice due to the belief in obligation preventing them from doing so, so they tried to cope as best they could.

One day, when one crowd had reached a particular amount of people, the faint sound of the lettuce leaves in the hamburger flapping against each other could be heard. It was faint – incredibly so – and yet, all the people there could hear it. Its volume gradually increased over what seemed like an eternity, until it seemed to engulf everything. But the hamburger was still.

Once at a certain volume, a loud, shrill hum pierced the space. Gradually more harsh noises came, and the people were enthralled, or so they seemed to be at first. It was not long before they found themselves prostrate, and it seemed as though the ground underneath no longer existed and was replaced by bodies.

The sounds called out for ages and for a distance, and the area was empty of movement. Any animals in the area left, and those who remained in the city and were not joined in took longer routes to get wherever, for the sound kept layering and increasing. It remained confined, but it was eternal and even if not heard, it could be felt. It changed behaviour and the dynamic relationship between concrete and flesh, and there was nothing that could be done.

Eventually someone became so angry about their life being impacted by this that they decided to walk over the crowd and toward the hamburger. Armed with earplugs of an exceptional quality, they stepped over people who were angry about this person’s approach, but they could not do anything about it for they were paralytic. And this person was angrier than they were, anyway.

They approached with firm conviction, and despite their earplugs being as good as they were, the sounds started coming through. Still, they kept moving with conviction and they arrived at the hamburger, and proceeded to kick it over.

With one firm bunt the burger fell over and fell apart, and the moment it did the sounds stopped. The person walked away; they had to get to work. Soon the crowd there started getting up, seemingly as though nothing had happened and they hadn’t been lying there for weeks. They returned to their lives.

Those in the crowd denied anything had happened and denied that they were caught in the hamburger’s thrall, and some even denied that there was a burger there, but people knew, and though they eventually gave up on trying to get people to admit to their being misled, relationships were changed.

As for the hamburger, well, it was just a hamburger and its constituent components were thrown out as though waste, which, once it had fallen apart, it had become.