Maybe it's Justin; he seems to like this pseudofamilial camaraderie. He sure as hell didn't get it at home, where plastered on smiles and tautly meaningless chitchat ruled the evening meals. He's certainly adapted, jumping into whatever's seeping out of whoever's pores today. For a while, anyway, until a well-placed hand brings him back to more important topics, like getting laid.

I wonder if I can get him out of here before the cannoli.

I'm about to tweak his ear when I see it. The look. His eyes are almost-but-not-quite crossed, the frown line between his brows just starting to form. He's thinking, but his mind is a thousand miles away. I can't not watch this because the evolution of Justin's thoughts and their corresponding facial expressions is a thing of beauty. If you're careful, you can see what he's looking at, although I highly doubt anyone could see what he sees. The barest glimmer of resignation, disgust, revulsion and pity flicker here and there. It hits me, then, that he's more than just not paying attention.

He's just not here anymore. Wherever he's gone, it's away from tonight's cocks-and-robbers melodrama and the quickly disintegrating whatever-the-fuck Debbie's shoveling down our throats. I want to be there, where he is. It has to be better than this... this fucking carnival of convention. They're like wind-up toys; twist a bit and they talk and walk, but it's always the same thing. Jerk off this, gold lame that, vagina sculptures and rainbow flags. Don't they ever fucking change?

Yeah, I pitch the same shit all the time, but at least I know I'm doing it. Fuck, I mean to; that way nobody bothers to look around the poster board. These losers want people to look closer. They beg for it, little tin cups rattling with change as they scrape up the discarded butt-ends of other peoples' dignity. They're stuck, the same, not decaying but not growing. Static.

Dolls. Fucking plastic dolls, like what Mattel throws away when the fuckheads on the Barbie doll assembly line drop acid and go crazy with the little cunt. Fully pose-able with a limited range of motion. Fully functional within original manufacturer's parameters. Waterproof but susceptible to drowning. Ninety-nine percent of little girls throw away their Barbies for good reason: after a while, they're fucking boring. They stand there, looking pretty, but then what? There's only so many times you can change her clothes; she'll never be anything else. You buy them all, but what do you have? Ten thousand of the same damned thing.

They're just like that. Every day, every fucking family dinner and it's all the same. Put a different set of clothes on it, change the names in the story, and it's the same goddamned thing. I wouldn't care if they would just fucking notice. Come on, you bastards, wake up and revel in your absurdity. They're still asleep, though. Sleeping or willfully ignorant, I can't tell which. Or perhaps I don't want to. It doesn't matter; I'll just go to work and write another formulaic fantasy for them to insert into their monotonous little collection. They buy my shit, even as they mock me for selling it to them. Can't they see that I'm just selling them themselves? They've traded their flesh for beer and electronica and Gucci knockoffs. They're the market, the demographic and the product. They're losers who've bought into their own inferiority, buying chinks in their own armor.

I watch as their faces blur, soft rubberized plastic sliding into new, shiny shapes. Flesh-toned clouds, morphing into whatever I want to see. Babbling sheep, suspicious-looking rabbits. I hate this place, I hate these symbolic excuses for human beings and mostly I hate that I'm still sitting here putting up with this shit. The only person around me who's not turning into a fucking puddle of blissful stupidity is Justin and maybe I could just grab him and make a run for it. We could go home and fuck ourselves back into some semblance of reality, where Emmett isn't Earring Magic Ken and Mikey isn't doing an admirable impersonation of Skipper's twat.

Oh god, someone get me out of here before I regret not breaking myself in two.

I need Justin. Now.

Getting out of here out of here now out here out there like I'm pressed up against reinforced glass, scratching my eyes out, pleading with bloody fingertips, get me out of here. Drop kick the lesbian superduo through a window, swing Ted by his ankles and knock the door down, stick a pin into Debbie's brain and detonate her psyche, I don't care I just need out.

Or, I could do what I do near the end of every family dinner: reach into my back pocket and pull out a square of silken disdain and wipe my mind with it, toss a few catty comments on the table as a tip, and make my grand exit stage left, fair-haired boy in tow. Give my apologies to the court, but we must bid you adieu; something better is waiting anywhere but here. Please, go on about your pointless existences as you were before our arrival. Their faces agglomerate back into place, each lump looking slightly disappointed as its fun comes to an end.

Now--how to ease our way out the door without the requisite dish of leftovers. Mentioning a trip to the backroom usually works.