Severed

There has to be almost a thousand people in the room, yet he feels more alone than ever.  Looking around at the smiling faces, both genuine and forced, at the laughter of women and men, old and ever young, he understands what it is all supposed to portray.  But he does not connect.  He never connects.  Whatever tenuous threads might have existed in some distant past have long since been severed.  Perceived toughness, even heroism, is nothing more than other people's desire, their primal need, to project something, anything, on to the empty shell of his emotions.  They fear the dark and silent vacuum that truly resides inside him without even knowing that it exists.

Once again he seeks out the deliberate and time-worn mental switch; the mask appears.  He enters in to the crowd and nobody suspects.