I’ve been watching the foreman, old man, for weeks now. He’s got that look about him, the one that makes your jaw ache from holding it too tight. Like a dog with a bone it can’t quite swallow, but won’t let go of, either. He’s up for a regional spot, big money, the kind of money that lets you breathe a little deeper when the bills come. And his supervisor, a good kid, sharp, been pushing for him. Really talking him up, you know? But then the foreman, he starts in. Little jabs. Unnecessary arguments, really. About inventory counts, shift schedules, things that are just… fine. Not even a speck of dust to complain about, but he’s making mountains out of it. And the supervisor, bless his heart, he’s trying to defuse it, smooth things over. You can see the confusion in his eyes, like he’s watching a machine he built suddenly start to eat itself. I remember that feeling. The slow, creeping dread, like a cold draft under the door. For years, I kept my head down, punched the clock. Every penny was accounted for, a careful arrangement of dominoes, one wrong move and the whole thing would collapse. The fear of that collapse, it was a heavy coat I couldn’t ever take off. It makes you sharp, that kind of fear. You learn to see the cracks before anyone else, to anticipate the ways things can go wrong. But sometimes, that same sharpness, it turns on you. It makes you pick at the scabs that don’t even exist. I had a chance once, not a big one, but a chance. A training program for something… administrative. Away from the floor. A stepping stone, they said. My wife, God rest her, she was so proud. Her eyes had that light in them, like when we first met. But I kept finding reasons. The kids needed me, the hours were all wrong, the pay wasn’t… immediate enough. I mean I don't even — whatever. I’d argue with the shop steward, who was practically holding my hand to fill out the forms. “It’s a good opportunity, Frank,” he’d say, his voice patient, like he was talking to a child. And I’d just feel this… tightening in my chest. A constriction, like a metal band. It wasn't that I didn’t want it. Not really. It was just… the unknown. The way the air feels different outside the walls you’ve always known. The thought of walking into that office, into a new kind of quiet, it felt like shedding my skin, and I was too old, too tired for that kind of discomfort. So I found fault with the program, with the people running it, with the very idea itself. I chipped away at it, piece by piece, until it just… evaporated. Like smoke. And I stood there, still on the floor, still covered in grease, and felt a kind of hollow victory. Now I see the foreman, and I recognize it. That desperate, almost frantic need to disrupt the very thing that could lift him up. It’s a strange kind of self-sabotage, like pushing away the hand that offers you water when you’re parched. He’s afraid, I think. Not of failing, exactly. But of succeeding. Of what that success would demand of him. Of the new kind of man he’d have to become. It’s easier to stay in the familiar ache, I suppose. The ache you know. Even if it’s an ache that keeps you from ever truly stretching out. The supervisor, he’s starting to look… resigned. The fight in his eyes, it’s dimming. And the foreman, he just keeps going, like a broken record, playing the same discordant note over and over.