Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
prodigalwatcher) wrote2007-01-19 03:24 pm
prodigalwatcher) wrote2007-01-19 03:24 pm
Entry tags:
AL - January 2007
Title: Façade
Prompt: "Everything's fine today, that is our illusion." --Voltaire
Character: Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Warning: None
Pairing: None
Fandom: Buffy/Angel
Word count: 527
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Wesley and other characters created by Joss Whedon and are property of Mutant Enemy Productions, and are used without permission.
It has always been somewhat difficult for me to interact with individuals outside of the circles within which I typically travel. (This, of course, is in addition to my former awkwardness in any social situation.)
In most people's experience, it is much simpler to interact and find empathy and understanding within a homogeneous group. Men feel more accepted in the company of men, mothers surrounded by other mothers, police officers and soldiers are more at ease around other police officers and soldiers. This is not a failing of us as a social animal, but an understandable gravitation toward other individuals with whom one shares experiences or histories or any other particular trait.
Such difficulties are much more acutely felt when one is in possession of information to which his or her fellows are not privy. The more difficult or troublesome that information would be to other people, the further separated from the group one may feel. This is, alas, the situation in which I find myself on the irregular chance that I enter a more, shall we say, typical social situation.
I know that there is a world of which only the slightest percentage of human beings on this planet are aware. There are beings that live and work and play and feed amongst us with abilities and powers that would quail even the bravest spirit. I know of-- and, for that matter, spoken to-- powers and entities whose true nature defies human understanding. Demons. Vampires. Gods. Oracles. Werewolves. Ghosts.
I have seen things which to the great majority of people's knowledge, exist only in the most colorful imaginations of authors and screenwriters. Alternate dimensions. Transformation. Resurrection. Magic in its myriad forms and styles.
I am myself a part of the line held against the darkness, whose marshaled forces are beyond our ken.
So, you see how it might be difficult to sympathise too greatly with my breakfast server's frustration at their fervent desire to become the next George Clooney being thwarted again and again by incompetent representation.
More than once, the mission has brought me out of the alleyways and abandoned warehouse spaces and into the world of the unknowing. Vampires in particular seem to often thrive on existing and searching for their prey in the most public of venues. There, in the bars and dance clubs, pressed in between the living, breathing bodies and the psychic scents of hopefulness and desperation and loneliness, I have wondered what the gathered beautiful people would think if they knew about the bloodthirsty demon predator that danced among them.
What steers me away from the darker directions of such ruminations is the reminder to myself that the ignorance these individuals exhibit, their complete and utter obliviousness to the horror movie that unfolds every second of every day right under their city's collective nose. If they knew, there would be panic, hysteria. The world is no longer capable of accepting these realities, and is better off that way.
And so if you happen to see the quiet, unsociable Brit in the corner of the bar, now you know why he's not inclined to chat.
Prompt: "Everything's fine today, that is our illusion." --Voltaire
Character: Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Warning: None
Pairing: None
Fandom: Buffy/Angel
Word count: 527
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Wesley and other characters created by Joss Whedon and are property of Mutant Enemy Productions, and are used without permission.
It has always been somewhat difficult for me to interact with individuals outside of the circles within which I typically travel. (This, of course, is in addition to my former awkwardness in any social situation.)
In most people's experience, it is much simpler to interact and find empathy and understanding within a homogeneous group. Men feel more accepted in the company of men, mothers surrounded by other mothers, police officers and soldiers are more at ease around other police officers and soldiers. This is not a failing of us as a social animal, but an understandable gravitation toward other individuals with whom one shares experiences or histories or any other particular trait.
Such difficulties are much more acutely felt when one is in possession of information to which his or her fellows are not privy. The more difficult or troublesome that information would be to other people, the further separated from the group one may feel. This is, alas, the situation in which I find myself on the irregular chance that I enter a more, shall we say, typical social situation.
I know that there is a world of which only the slightest percentage of human beings on this planet are aware. There are beings that live and work and play and feed amongst us with abilities and powers that would quail even the bravest spirit. I know of-- and, for that matter, spoken to-- powers and entities whose true nature defies human understanding. Demons. Vampires. Gods. Oracles. Werewolves. Ghosts.
I have seen things which to the great majority of people's knowledge, exist only in the most colorful imaginations of authors and screenwriters. Alternate dimensions. Transformation. Resurrection. Magic in its myriad forms and styles.
I am myself a part of the line held against the darkness, whose marshaled forces are beyond our ken.
So, you see how it might be difficult to sympathise too greatly with my breakfast server's frustration at their fervent desire to become the next George Clooney being thwarted again and again by incompetent representation.
More than once, the mission has brought me out of the alleyways and abandoned warehouse spaces and into the world of the unknowing. Vampires in particular seem to often thrive on existing and searching for their prey in the most public of venues. There, in the bars and dance clubs, pressed in between the living, breathing bodies and the psychic scents of hopefulness and desperation and loneliness, I have wondered what the gathered beautiful people would think if they knew about the bloodthirsty demon predator that danced among them.
What steers me away from the darker directions of such ruminations is the reminder to myself that the ignorance these individuals exhibit, their complete and utter obliviousness to the horror movie that unfolds every second of every day right under their city's collective nose. If they knew, there would be panic, hysteria. The world is no longer capable of accepting these realities, and is better off that way.
And so if you happen to see the quiet, unsociable Brit in the corner of the bar, now you know why he's not inclined to chat.