By The Time You Finish Reading This

I Stare Into A Thin, Web-like Crack Above The Urinal's Handle And Think To Myself That If I Were To Disappear Into That Crack, Say Somehow Miniaturize And Slip Into It, The Odds Are Good That No One Would Notice I Was Gone. No... One... Would... Care. In Fact Some, If They Noticed My Absence, Might Feel An Odd, Indefinable Sense Of Relief. This Is True: The World Is Better Off With Some People Gone. Our Lives Are Not All Interconnected. That Theory Is Crock. Some People Truly Do Not Need To Be Here.

When We Sat Down To Eat I Took Inventory Of The People In The Room, And The Remnants Of My Good Mood Evaporated When I Realized How Very Little I Had In Common With Them – The Career Dads, The Responsible And Diligent Moms – And I Was Soon Filled With Dread And Loneliness. I Locked In On The Smug Feeling Of Superiority That Married Couples Give Off And That Permeated The Air – The Shared Assumptions, The Sweet And Contented Apathy, It All Lingered Everywhere – Despite The Absence In The Room Of Anyone Single At Which To Aim This.

I Had All The Characteristics Of A Human Being—flesh, Blood, Skin, Hair—but My Depersonalization Was So Intense, Had Gone So Deep, That My Normal Ability To Feel Compassion Had Been Eradicated, The Victim Of A Slow, Purposeful Erasure. I Was Simply Imitating Reality, A Rough Resemblance Of A Human Being, With Only A Dim Corner Of My Mind Functioning

I Tried To Make Meat Loaf Out Of The Girl But It Becomes Too Frustrating A Task And Instead I Spend The Afternoon Smearing Her Meat All Over The Walls, Chewing On Strips Of Skin I Ripped From Her Body

What Keeps Me Interested--and It Always Does--is How Can She Be A Bad Actress On Film But A Good One In Reality?