Last night you were the truthshadow of the couple in the next bed. Silent, unmoving together, you were the nothing in their empty breathless gestures.

In the morning, a pile of cleverly thwarted origami on the table. Doodled nonwriting on a hotel notepad there. Everything in its right place.

A hurriedly scratched hieroglyphic letter/teleplay/resolution to yourself:

Today you are a newly configured scattering of pixels. You are the low resolution image of yourself. You are the teleprompted life. You are the preselected gameshow contestant coming on down, the sitcom laughtrack, the (un)shocking new black and white security camera footage at ten, the series of carefully arranged ones and zeroes. Today you are the mutated shadow of your genetic code stretched out over broken mirror lens and charred bits of carbon and film. You are the thirty-second polyurethane spot knotted tight over a dull globe of semen. Your face contorts itself around the simulation of expression, in desperate search of the camera eye's reflection. Today you give your self away in the rapid realitybased blink of an eye; within seconds, you are gone, your body given over to a pixelation of white noise. The sound of unchanneled static rushing in to fill your space.

You know Louie, the drive through La Jolla is always spectacular this time of year!

Jumping music.

Slick deejays.

Fog machines, and.

Laser rays.

This is the sound of a stomach set to Permanent Growl at four o’clock in the morning.

This is the sound of beauty panting with uncontrollable selflust.

This is an army of sullen teens with automatic assault rifles, and hit lists, and digital video cameras.

This is the survival of the prettiest—live, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.