The Personalities

Abstract

Aman bought a box of new personalities and rented an audience to test them out. He wanted to see how they might work in die real world before actually trying them out in the real world. He was a very fastidious man. The audience consisted of actors diat had not performed a sufficient number of oral sex acts on a sufficient number of Hollywood executives to earn their Guild cards. Each of the actors was to be paid the standard salary for a day's worth of extra work. There were four personalities inside the box. The man opened it up, removed one of the personalities and put it on. "Well?" he said, glaring at the audience. "Do your jobs and react to me, goddamn it. My personality is the cause—you are my effect." The actors blinked at him. They were sitting in a half-circle of aluminum fold-out chairs. AU of their backs were stiff, all of their hands were resting palm-down on their knees. Must be a dud, thought the man. He took off the personality, tossed it onto the floor, stomped on it, removed another personality from the box and put it on. The actors blinked at him. One of them coughed. Another sniffed. "Ah-ha," said the man, and raised an eyebrow. An actor copied him and raised his eyebrow. Another actor copied the actor that was copying the man and raised his eyebrow. Another actor copied that actor, and another actor copied that actor, and another one copied another one, and so on until all of the actors' faces possessed one raised eyebrow. The man studied the audience for a moment, gauging and judging their quixotic behavior. "Interesting," he said. "Very interesting. But not my style, I'm afraid." He ripped off the personality and flung it into a open manhole somebody had engraved into a nearby wall. He put on a third personality. The audience immediately burst into applause. It took no time at all for the man to read into this piece of reflexivity. "That's definitely not my style," he snorted, taking off the personality and throwing it at one of the actors. The personality attached itself to the actor's head like a baby squid. His colleagues