five seconds | corporate event, 7 p.m. | fox w. mika

           Posing for the press with the co-star of my latest project. I back off slightly and some photographer-interviewer pulls her aside and starts taking all these shots of her looking really great in dark red and I have to resist the impulse to stand back next to her and I wait by the entrance, drinking vodka from a champagne glass while one of my agent’s assistants strikes up a conversation and when I stop answering his questions about the venue, work, my love life, he responds by pointing out a bird’s nest on one of the ceiling beams, and there must be ten, eleven valet assistants, all of them wearing black suits and speaking in code to each other as they hop in and out of flashy hovercrafts, the newer models, and I end up going in by myself, the bouncer nodding and lifting the rope while whispering something into his communicuff, and right then a large car with tinted windows pulls up and someone I vaguely recognize from an old shoot gets out with his arms wrapped around two A-list girls dressed in matching silk gowns.

           And during my agent’s mandated company speech I'm sitting at a packed table in the front row gazing up at the wooden stage, my coworker’s hand on my arm as cool as ice, and it's dark and I'm trying to feel happy but someone's watch is ticking loudly and my eyes keep wandering off the projected images commemorating the year’s events and over to the two green exit signs that hang above the golden gates leading out into the empty streets. The program ends really abruptly when the chanting sets in and my coworker drifts off, encased in the crowd, shaking hands, and I start counting how many lanterns are strung around the backdrop, how many corners are occupied by couples, how many actors have shaved their heads this summer, and I find myself standing in a group of guys from ‘Whatever’ Studios (I forget the name), mostly filmmakers, all of them side-eyeing the event for documentary-value and drinking blood-orange martinis, and I don't really know anyone so everything's comfortable — talk of the Games, lion pelts and cannibalism moves effortlessly around the conversation and one of the producers keeps saying things like, "It's a shame, a real shame," or "Can you imagine," but his lips are trembling and he looks excited and I can make out the beginnings of a smile and I get the feeling he doesn't mean any of it and as talk circulates to how old one of the really gorgeous avox girls is, I wander away and hang out by the bar, alone, underdressed, and watch a guy in a red shirt with long stringy hair chase around a bunch of smiling Capitolite girls in matching dresses until one collapses into a chair and a friend comes over then leaves. I hope I'll never have to do this again.

Tonight there are afterparties I have to attend where the guests will have no clue who the host is and the hors d'eouveres will be shaped like famous land animals from the last arena and somewhere in all of this Analise has found me twice, whispering the sentence "You'd better get used to it," each time she departs. The awards ceremony has yet to start. And in the bathroom it’s quiet, empty, small yellow lights lining 10 feet of pure mirror. I stare at myself. Wash my hands for no reason.

           (Suddenly); the door opens.