Powder-keg

Tugging your sleeves into their proper position you get out of the cab and pay the driver with a whole note, regardless of what the fee was. Standing about fiddling with small change looks petty, whereas you don’t even look at the man as you hand over… whatever that note was. Money doesn’t really mean anything to you. With your back straight, shoulders loose and your head held casually at a carefully calculated angle, you walked up the steps and into the hall. As the waiters bow you give them a slight nod of your head. It looks good to acknowledge the staff, but you can’t mess up your hair while you do it.

The party is already crowded, creeping from the stage where people are trying to make small talk without having drunk enough to talk freely, and coasting over the line to the carefree tipsy stage where everyone is a friend. This is your playing field, your home. Each person has a wine glass in one hand and a plate of canapés in the other, trying to balance the fine art of talking, eating and drinking all at once, without spilling anything down their suits or dresses.

Of course your suit is always immaculate. You know better than to try and eat something; it’s always so off-putting when you have to answer someone with your mouthful. And you have to be ready to answer, or to get your quip in. You have an anecdote for every occasion, so why compromise your perfect timing by having a full mouth? You ate before hand anyway, before downing several mints in the taxi on the way here.

Everything about your appearance is pristine.

As you glide through the room you check out the competition, and with a slight smirk notice that no-one else pulls off the suit as well as you. Most of them are run-of-the-mill standard sizes, and the few others that are custom tailored are straining at the waist, as their inhabitants have swelled but refused to fork out again. None of the men there are as at one with their suit of armour as you are, and your benevolent smile hides the little spark of smugness you feel about that.

Next you size up the prizes on offer. A cluster of the new-blood giggle as you go past and wink at them, but they would be too easy for you. The sport comes from it being a challenge, so you look for the most brilliant jewels behind the sturdiest locks. The ones with an arm already around their waist, or rings on their fingers, or the ones who don’t look at you straight away. The more you have to fight for it the better it is. Besides, you need to keep your skills sharp. There’s no point getting complacent now.

Everyone in the room can smell the power coming off you, and the scavengers start circling. Maybe if they bask in your glow for long enough some of your charisma will rub off on them, but you know better than to stay too long around just one of them. The last thing you need is competition.

As people bounce past you greet them, giving everyone a name, regardless of whether its the right one or not. If you say it confidently enough they even start to wonder if it is their name and they’ve just been wrong for all these years. A few of them will adopt the names you give them, just so they can say they’re on first name terms with you.

None of them have worked out how you’ve gotten so much power. If they did they’d have done the same themselves. The beginners at the game assume it's your money, while the old hands think it's your youth. A few think it's clever marketing, a carefully constructed image that you’ve built and pushed for the public to devour. Little do they know that they’re the closest to your secret.

Across the room you catch the eye of a pretty young thing, someone you don’t recognise and you treat her to a special smile. The one that pretends that you’re interested, and you know that she’ll think she’s unique. Why else would someone like you smile at her so kindly? A little pet project for you, to keep on the back burner for a few years while she develops into someone useful.

On you flitter. There’s always a glass in your hand but you never drink. People would swear that you did, and you want them to think that you do. If everyone’s drinking then it's an even playing field, so of course you stay sober. Any little word, any half-glance, could be useful, and you’re not going to miss anything that could be useful.

The party keeps going throughout the hall, but the crowds nearest you would swear that it revolves around you now. If they found out the truth they’d think so much less of you though, wouldn’t they? The only reason you’re the centre of attention is because everyone wants to be at the centre of your attention. Though you have nothing of substance to say people remember you, and as everyone wants to be remembered they assume it’ll happen if they stay near you. To the moths the flame is everything, yet without the moths no-one would care about the flame.

By laughing loudly you broadcast your movement through the hall, and your dutiful worshippers are ready as you round the next corner or hit a thin patch of crowd. The key is to make it look effortless, but the way your eyes dart around the room betrays the constant planning and observation that’s going on in your head. Weeks worth of rumours and secrets are bouncing around, and the right word here or a deliberate avoidance there can prove some and disprove others, regardless of the facts. No-one in the room cares about facts.

That’s why no-one will hear the truth about you. Not yet.

All they want is acceptance and security, and the easiest way to get both of those is through power. Every step you’ve taken exudes power, even- especially- when you had none. Though they want to learn none of them will study, otherwise they’d have seen through you long ago.

In the centre of a ring of adoring fans your eyes skip across the heads and you catch my eye. The smile drops and there’s a flash of panic across your expensively maintained features.

Oh yes. You know the danger, and you know how weak your house of cards really is. All it would take is one scene, one public declaration of your cruelty. By itself it would mean nothing, but it would be enough to drag the others from the woodwork. All the people you’ve hurt and bullied over the years, all the people you’ve manipulated and abused. If they knew they weren’t alone they’d talk. All it needs is one spark to ignite the powder-keg of your existence.

And I’m stood right here.