He wasn’t sure at all why he came. He was a friend of a friend of a friend, and the chain had been broken when one friend (of a friend) didn’t attend. He knew no one, and this didn’t seem to be a crowd where the outsider would be welcomed openly. He hated to be tolerated. He hated to drink alone. He hated most to drink alone in a crowd that was all drinking around him. So he sat at the end of the sofa and lurked. He would call it watching, but the border between watching and lurking was ill-defined, and when you sit staring for half an hour, it’s a pretty good assumption you’ve crossed over into lurking. He thought of engaging in conversation, but everyone else was already engaged. Then he saw him, at the end of a sofa, alone. There was someone he could talk to, could get to know. And the mirror agreed.

Bio: Louis Faber