Mr. Lunch has a beige ranch house in a neighborhood exactly fifteen minutes from his office next to the park. Each night, he leaves with his hat on his head and takes the number fifty-three to a block full of very similar ranch houses.

He comes home and he sits down on a perfectly ordinary chair in a perfectly ordinary kitchen and reads the daily paper in his mailbox. It is in fact the only piece of mail ever there.

Mr. Lunch does not turn on the lights.

Sometimes, Mr. Lunch is peckish long after the hour where decent people sleep. He gets up from the table, and he takes his hat from the hat rack, and he takes the last number fifty-three back into the heart of the city.

Mr. Lunch knows where the sleeping nests of pigeons coo. He understands how long a memory owls have for predators, and when they will forget. Deep in the suburbs, Mr. Lunch knows where there is a perfectly ripe nest of eagles. Just the thing for a peckish businessman.

He keeps a napkin in his breast pocket just for such an occasion.

The nest is a wreck when he is done, but Mr. Lunch remains absolutely spotless. He is a professional, after all. Mr. Lunch simply straightens his tie before he returns to the nearby bus stop. He stands and waits there under the streetlight, a calm, vague smile on his lips. The next bus will not be for six hours.

How fortunate it is that Mr. Lunch is a patient man!

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