I classify people into three categories. The first is by far the most sinister. I call them the drones. These people always behave in an identical manner, in the comfort of their homes or in a crowded shopping mall. They’re so repressed that the idea of trying out behaviour that deviates even slightly from the norm (let alone something disgusting, or perverted, or even merely impolite) would never even enter their minds. Drones behave as if they were constantly in the limelight. Maybe they believe in an all-seeing, all-powerful god. Maybe they never stop thinking about themselves and the image they project. Maybe they just suffer from a cruel lack of imagination. Search me. People like that make my skin crawl.

Category Two takes in the vast majority of humankind. These are the normals. The ones who fart, burp, masturbate, scratch themselves, pick their scabs, pop their zits, and make faces in the mirror. They smell their fingers. They let their guts hang out. They breathe with their mouths open. They grunt. They cry. When lost in thought, some fidget like autistic children. They do these things alone and in the company of their significant others and even, for the less proud among them, in public. Extreme youth or diminished cognitive faculties (cretinism, senility, cranial trauma) also helps explain how they behave among their clans.

The third class of people are the ones who commit acts with more serious repercussions for the community. People like me. Most of the public security infrastructure and legal system is in place to reign these people in, to control and punish true deviance: child pornography, murder, financial crimes, self-harm, Munchausen’s syndrome, violence directed at the elderly and other vulnerable people, exhibitionism, voyeurism, terrorism — you get the idea. For the most part, we Category Three people are sick, dangerous individuals.

Crossing paths with another member of my group is exceedingly rare. But it happens. One spring night I saw a man leaning over to pet a cat in an alley. He whispered sweetly to the animal then hugged it very hard against him, whispering shhh, shhh, shhh. I realized he was strangling it. Then he set the dead cat down on the ground, hopped on his bike, and rode off. To each their own.

I always lie low for a while before my next play. To make it easier I like to imagine that my alter ego is following me. How long, I wonder, does it take me to conclude that there’s nothing to see when I’m observing someone? How long must I listen to the silence to be sure no one’s watching?