[ WP ] A psychopath , in beautiful prose , laments his chameleon-esque ability to pivot back and forth from supreme benevolence to sublime malevolence

Have you ever felt alone in a crowd? Ever been in a mall or on a bus, just minding your own business, when you're suddenly, inescapably struck with a feeling of isolation? The people around you stop being people - they're not like *you*. How could they be? How could they feel anything like the way you do, be anything like the way you are? They do n't know what's happening in your mind, and how could they? It's in these moments that you stop, just for a moment, and realize just how alone you really are. Human beings, minds separated by just a few feet of meat, bone and air, and yet they might as well be on opposite sides of the Earth. 
 
 Have you ever felt that way? 
 
 If you have, I imagine it passed as quickly as it came on. You pause, look around, seize upon some detail about one of the apes around you. The girl on the train staring out the window at the black, rushing walls of the tunnel; what does she see? The child sitting, obstinate, on the stairs of library, mother or father cajoling, trying to get on with whatever minutia it is that they call their lives. You see these things, and it jars you - you can recognize what's happening before your eyes, relate to it, wonder about these people surrounding you - and they are people, once again, not just apes - and you realize that yes, you are one of them. 
 
 You do these things. 
 
 I do n't. 
 
 I look around and I can only see apes. I can only see their faces, their bodies, their *meat*. There's no humanity there, no kindness, no communion. I go to movies, alone, and I sit in the dark. I watch the characters on the screen, and I watch the other theatre-goers. They stare at the pictures, intent. A monster leaps out, frightens the protagonists; the movie watchers startle, clutch at one another and then, remembering that it's all a farce, glance at each other and smile, reassured. The characters fall in love, pledge themselves to one another, and the watchers smile, clasp their neighbours' hands. The movie ends and the lights come on; they file out together, laughing, into the sunlight. 
 
 I've seen a lot of movies. I've never had a neighbour. 
 
 If I try, if I really try, I can look like one of them, act like one of them. I do it some days, commit myself to a persona drawn, more or less, from a hat. Who am I today? Am I the funny man, with his jokes and easy smile? Or will I be the asshole today, who swears at the slightest provocation, who scowls at everyone who dares to meet his eyes? Perhaps I'll be the lover, visiting the florist for a bouquet of red roses - that one is a challenge; the shopkeeper knows all about my beloved, and to keep the charade I must hold two people in my head at once: myself, and the man I profess to adore. 
 
 There is no man, of course. No woman, either, for that matter. I'm not funny, not angry, not in love. I just am; all of these things, and none, all at once. 
 
 And I am alone.
