The Dogfish | Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

He leaned close, loud enough for the room to catch it. This wasn't a conversation - it was a broadcast.

"So," he asked, gesturing toward her midsection, "when's the due date?"

A classic low-level power move, performed with all the subtlety of a loudspeaker. He had her cornered and when she predictably denied being pregnant, his smirk deepened. "Oh," he replied, his tone heavy with mock surprise, "so you're just looking a little… rounded then?"

No mea culpa when he was corrected - nada. He simply pivoted to a secondary insult, savoring the rush of power that came from making someone else feel small.

Before she could get another word out, his eyes had shifted, locking on another female figure standing nearby. He was always on the hunt, shopping for the next target; he treated people like cheap toys he was entitled to rip apart, just to see how they would break.

To him, they are objects, not human beings with feelings.

Photo by Jimmy Donnellon on Unsplash

"Your face is a real curiosity," he said, pausing to add, "the incredible texture - all those rugged little peaks and valleys, like a topographic map." He prodded at the poor woman's skin condition and self-esteem with every word. "Wow, your skin is so 3D!"

He didn't need a response or the courtesy of applause. He was his own only fan.

He roared with laughter at his own jab, fully convinced he'd nailed the night's best line, high-fiving himself internally. It was all sound and fury, signifying nothing decent about him.

Everyone else traded glances of discomfort in silent acknowledgment. Some chuckled nervously; others managed to force the corners of their lips into something resembling a smile, their lower faces trembling from the strain of maintaining the pretense.

No one was impressed here - just the hapless reaction of a crowd trapped in the gutter of social niceties, while Bateman was busy admiring his own reflection in the stars. Each of them terrified of becoming the next casualty of his barbs.

They say a man who has no enemies has no character; if that's true, this is certainly a man of unparalleled character.

He commanded the space with the unabashed grandeur of someone convinced he was the most charismatic man in the room.

He strode through the room like the world was his stage. No one was in awe of him; they were just in defense mode, tracking where his next insult would hit staying out of the line of fire.

A main character in his own head. Pride, was definitely his favorite sin.

He couldn't stop running his mouth, of course; for a moment of silence might reveal the hollow chamber between his eyes.

His face was a portrait of smug self-satisfaction - a man convinced of his own brilliance. He derived a perverse pleasure from his own perceived wit.

The fool doth think he is wise; and he that is not wise by twenty, nor by thirty, nor by forty, nor by fifty, will never be wise.

What he mistook for wit was, in fact, just juvenile ineptitude; beneath the tailored suit and the posturing, he was simply a manchild who refused to act like an adult.

To him, it was a jest; to everyone else, it was clear that he was simply trampling on someone else's dignity, using their humiliation as a prop to feed his own bloated, sick sense of self-importance.

©Britt H.

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