Dinner with Strangers

Since I moved to Toronto, I have kept to myself. Choosing to examine the mistakes of my former life rather than live in my present one. So accepting an invitation to a dinner party from a man I just met was out of my norm. Yet here I stand on the 13th floor, in front of a massive wooden door, ready to ring the bell and contemplating the other guests.

Upon entering the apartment I was struck by the brightness. The walls, drapery and furniture were a brilliant shade of white, illuminating the stark room and all it's contents. My eyes went directly to the dining room table where five guests sat rigid and proper speaking yet barely audible. The table was adorned with white lilies, roses and hydrangea. Platters of food were neatly arranged and I immediately noticed my favorites: baked brie with jam and grapes, lollipop lamb chops and chocolate truffles. But it wasn't the food that intrigued me, it was the guests. I made my way to the table and sat between the man with the silver beard and the wiry hipster.

Our gracious host poured me a glass of wine and we each began to tell our story. The hipster started. He was thin, anxious and quick. His words spilling out of his mouth and his hands always moving. His eyes darted and his stance was ready to jump.. He spoke too fast and I could not grasp what he was saying.

To his right sat the tall, thin, strikingly beautiful woman who spoke next. She introduced herself as a cheating wife. How strange to present yourself as a wrong doer yet she was confident and unapologetic. She focused on her ability to hide her actions from her husband and her exquisite powers of deception.

She was interrupted by an gentleman who referred to himself as the dinosaur smuggler. Of course he wasn't referring to actual dinosaurs rather it was his gentle way of referencing the elderly. He spent his time taking elderly people from nursing homes and sneaking them into posh hotels. I couldn't bring myself to ask why. He felt he was saving the old and tricking the establishment.

Then the man with the silver beard reached over and grabbed my hand. He was adorned in jewels and wore a velvet suit. His cologne had an whiff of leather and new car. His eyes were mesmerizing and his voice alluring. I wanted him to continue to hold on to me, to talk to me, to see me. I was falling into him before I realized it was my turn.

I started to speak, ready to create a lie of who I am and what I do. Instead, the host stood up and commanded attention. He was a dark man in a black suit and suddenly I was frightened. He seemed so much taller and broader.

He introduced me by my first name and looked around the room in silence, begging the guests to look at me, to judge me.

"My dear, we see you. Do you see us? Do you recognize your anxiety riddled career in the quick movements of our hipster? Does your affair look any better through our beauty's eyes? Can you escape the aging you so desperately fear? And can you turn from the allure of riches and luxuries?". He spat the words at me.

As he asked each question, our guests became hallucinations, transparent and liquid. I jumped and ran out of the apartment. I was terrified and did not take a breathe until I reached my place 6 blocks away. I ran upstairs, crawled into bed and pulled the comforter over my head.

What was that? Am losing my mind? Then I realized. I went to the mirror, and my reflection looked back at me surrounded by my dinner guests.