Instructions on How to Keep Company
Begin by forgetting any preconceived ideas and beliefs you may have, prepare a blank canvas, let your soul become a shell, lose yourself. Any relevant company favors those they can influence, become accustomed to that indescribable feeling of emptiness. Let it consume you, accept it, and reap its benefits.
By Martha Bratcher
Educate yourself on the latest trends, quickly forget the ones that have fallen out of fashion, lest you fall with them. Hold them at arm’s length, ready to befriend or discard. Once you have mastered this art, I think you’ll be well on your way. Know that when one approaches you, they aren’t offering their companionship. Their ears will remain deaf to your troubles, their eyes blind to your pain. You may know their name, but they will always be a stranger, as you are to them. They are giving you—and although they seem to not know, deep down they do, we all do—they are gifting you with a temporary contract, a promise to keep each other company if the other happens to be around. A portrait creating the appearance of normality and higher status. An agreement easily disregarded once it has become bothersome to either party. And after many of these contracts have been constructed and terminated (but this will happen much later), you can despair in the emptiness you have surrendered to, realizing that you will always be merely a shell of the person you abandoned so long ago. In your mission for societal acceptance you rescinded your youth and happiness. But what did you expect, what more do you want? You don’t know anymore, all you know is the satisfaction of blending in the crowd, being wanted by the masses. So quickly, forget also that gloomy revelation, bind yourself to that decision you made so long ago and let your conscience remain free of doubt. Pay no mind to the withering of your sanity. Save your cries for the dark of your desolate home. Afterwards, grab a drink at your local cafe and chat with a newly formed, utterly boring, acquaintance, and please, don’t converse in a way that gives away such fickle inner turmoil and leave them to deal with their own.
9
