Pretend you do not notice. Or pretend you do but don't want to talk about it. Isn't it better when we both pretend alike and for like's sake? you are thinking. When we are both same-page-in-same-story-same? But what you do not notice is I am beginning to think up new stories, lots of them, so many unpayed-attention-to stories that they charge over each other trying to get into the mall. One of my stories has been mortally wounded by another story's look-at-me-me-me boots. At the hospital, they ask that story to recall with her last breath what happened, but all she says is "I didn't understand how much we all wanted." And that it could never, despite all the knowing advertisements using our stories to hoodwink our selves, ever be the same thing.