SF(a)ADL - The Sausage Roll boy

On August 1 2013 I published Scenes from an Airport Departure Lounge. Descriptions of people at Heathrow. This week I am expanding on those descriptions a little with some imagined elaborations. 

He greedily bit in to the sausage roll, taking a good third into his mouth, three or four chews and he went for a second bite revealing a mouthful of half chewed pastry, meat and gristle. Two more bites and the thing was gone; the only clue to its existence were crumbs on his shirt and a screwed up package on the seat next to him. He was only a young lad but it looked like he enjoyed his food and the extra weight on his face aged him considerably. Not that he cared,  he looked pleased with himself as if he’d just beaten his personal best for eating a sausage roll. He sat back folding his arms across his chest looking satisfied. I turned my eyes away to look at the woman with pink nail varnish. The noise reverberated around the departure gate, it sounded like the shot of a rifle, or a backfire from a Vauxhall Velux; a loud single blast that made the check-in woman jump and let out a little yelp. She wasn't the only one; just about everyone looked up from what they’d been doing to see where the noise had come from. Heartbeats had increased, brains were ticking, eyes flitting for places to take cover. The little girl who had lost her battle with sleep was sitting up, rubbing her eyes searching for what had caused her impromptu alarm call. Was this it? Was this the terrorist attack that we'd been so often  warned about but had never thought would happen to us? I looked around, there were no signs of terrorists, no people in balaclavas or men with guns, no armed police response units hurrying noisily into position like soldiers do.

The smell of half digested meat and spices that wafted through the room gave it away, eyes fell on sausage roll boy who was blushing ever so slightly. Our impending death at the hands of terrorists had actually been one hell of a burp from our greedy friend.