Kindergarten. I think it’s a German word, but that’s when you get your first taste of it, some people even younger, but it’s safe to say that EVERYONE did this from then until they graduated or gave up.

Straighten up.

Turn your head this way.

Big smile, now.

The big umbrellas sending light into your face, a smile missing teeth, and eyes with little diamonds sparkling and doing more to lighten up the picture than any flash bulb could. Every child gets one; it’s their inauguration as a member of a culture of Me. You’re preserved for eternity in a glossy eight-by-ten, for everyone to see.

Your school picture.

Your school picture, I’ve always thought, is so the police will have something to put on the TV news, the papers, and the milk cartons when you inevitably get stolen away by some psychotic pedophile and sodomized to death. They’ll need it to identify what’s left of the body, your remains. Even that’s self-indulgent; your parents assume that their little angel is so important that some coked-out sex pervert would take keen interest in you, their precious child, and a rookie card in the world of child molesters. But, no, you need that picture even more than the police OR your parents EVER would.

Your first professional head shot.

Your parents keep every picture.

Your parents make your portfolio.

You’re a star, it’s all about you, and nothing is going to change that. Reality be damned, you’re young enough to believe in God and Santa Claus unflinchingly. The Easter Bunny died on the cross so you could stuff your face with his chocolatey, rather than golden, idol. You watch TV and you don’t see anyone but yourself. You see yourself, the lights are bright and your words are spun gold. A clever retort slips out from between your lips, and the crowd roars with canned laughter.

Big laugh.

All eyes on you.

Everyone wants to be famous, and they are in their own little way, and there isn’t a single person who’s going to question that; otherwise, they’d be questioning their own existence as the protagonist.

The star.

The leading man or lady, showing off for the whole of their little world. If you’re American, really integrated into the culture, the world is a stage, and everyone is a supporting player; an invisible audiences laughs with you, jeers your enemies, and goads you into performing your melodrama of self-importance.

Me.

Me.

Me.

Your smallest problem is the world’s smallest problem. Your biggest fear is a weight on the shoulders of every man, woman and child in your life. All yours. No one else is like you. You’re a beautiful, important, singular sensation strutting around in front of the audience of make-believe. You wring your hands, fuss over your appearance, dole out sagely wisdom, make the cleverest jokes, and let everyone know who’s in charge: You.

You live and you die, and when you’re gone, the world may as well burn down because you aren’t there to make it wonderful and worth living in anymore. You know it won’t end, though, so you build yourself a mausoleum, not out of bricks and mortar, but out of every act of self-love you’ve designed to reign over everyone you’ve ever met, so you can live on as word of mouth, an obituary, a bridge named after you. Your own little religion.

You’ve martyred yourself so you can outlive your body and soul. Yours IS the word of God, your personal God:
You. Me. Him. Her.

You want them to talk. It doesn’t matter if you’re Pol Pot, Marilyn Monroe, or just some old lady who died alone and was then devoured by her dozen or so cats.

A big scene, you don’t care if you have a million mourners or a million people cheering for your execution. They’re as wrapped up in Them as You are in You.

Them.

You.

That’s all there is, so you perform for your audience of make-believe, even though you know everyone feels the same way. You are Them. The world is just 6 billion-or-so “You”s and a singular “Them.”

And Them is You.

I could feel myself screaming, but I was deaf to what was actually coming out of my mouth. What I heard was something along the lines of, “I’ll, uh, have a cup of coffee.”

“And you, miss,” said the waitress. “That all for you, too?”

This is about where I stopped paying attention to the voices: that of the waitress, of Amy, of all the other patrons. No, all I heard was the buzzing of at least a dozen-or-so flies. I couldn’t stand the sound of their wings, the sight of them landing on people and their food… No, the worst of it was when I felt them land upon me, especially my hands.

It’s not important how it felt, you barely feel it anyway; the sensation of their unperceivable impact against your skin, no, not the tickle of their multiple legs in locomotion across your body. They were disgusting, that’s it. Filthy creatures. Landing on you, vomiting up their not-quite-digested meal, slurping it back up to begin the process again, like some sort of arthropod cows chewing cud in a toothless, sucking mouth.

I lifted my hand and shooed it away just in time to see the waitress walk away from our table to get the pot of coffee. Momentarily distracted by her butt, I looked on for a second or so before turning back to Amy. She had been weeping nearly half an hour before, keeping me from my 11 PM coffee. Nothing important, at least not so important that she could cry for any more than a few minutes over it.

Now it’s half an hour ago and she’s crying. A hug, an awkward friendly glance. I make a joke, but only to mask the sorry fact that I resent knowing nothing of the bliss that is cohabitation with one’s lover. Her and her boyfriend have been living with her parents since he’d been kicked out or left on his own or something equally unimportant.

Curlicues of smoke twirled out of my nostrils, as if they wished to punctuate my speech with visible commas and full stops. On occasion, they would seem to form parentheses around my head as I made remarks that had more to them than I was saying…

“Well, of course he feels bad about not working while you and your family support him,” I had told her without adding, “but he could at least TRY to get his parents to sign off on a work permit!”

“Well, maybe you two need some space,” I chimed in, while my inner monologue chirped, “You know, like maybe making him move back into his place?”

But what do I know? I’ve never lived with anyone I ever slept with, so any attempt at “real” advice would be as helpful as giving directions to a part of town you know like the back of your head. In a lot of ways, I envied them, if only because of the sex, but I was mostly left feeling sorry for two people I once saw to be an inseparable match that only had to face the gauntlet of college.

That was half an hour ago. Now we’re in the diner, a place that was once a bastion for smokers like me, drinking coffee and talking about nothing. Not that I mind not talking about anything of any “real” weight. Not at all. I prefer it to the alternative, discussing issues of importance. That sort of thing only irritates me when I’m trying to reach nirvana in a dive like this. Insecure as always, backing away from my life, I try to get away without even leaving, but I’m pulled back too soon by reality.

Back at the diner, as Amy and I talked, a seemingly innocuous smile drew its way across my lips as Amy continued talking… Everyone else seemed to be looking at me, not staring, but at right about the same time a few people looked over, right at me for a second or so and turned away, then turned back as if they needed to check on it. They heard it and I did not, but I didn’t need to hear it, I felt it.

I could feel myself laughing.