Indomitability.

  He looked me in the eyes as I stated the number adjacent to the item. A ten piece tender basket, with fries, gravy, and optional coleslaw.
  "I'll have a number ten, please?"
The clerk looked at me as if he was confused. As if he wanted to gage me.
"What was that, sir?" He asked in return. I sighed faintly, "the number ten meal, please?" I said a bit louder.
 
He didn't bother to look back, and now with a grin turning at his lips, I immediately caught his game.
  'This son of a bitch. I thought to myself, he's engaging me so I'll say the name of the meal... that devil incarnate!'

I knew I couldn't stand my ground much longer, especially as the dings of customers entering behind me became louder, and louder. Like the corpse's heartbeat under the floorboards in Edgar Allen Poe's "A Telltale Heart," they ached me closer to a breaking point. Swear from my pores over my forehead, yet my eye contact with this clerk hadn't broken yet.

Nor did my resolve.

[ to be continued ]