Chapter 4 - Megalomania

Sarah Simpson knew that the lit up a room when she entered it. Heads would turn and others were already focused on her as if they anticipated her arrival wherever she went. She loved the attention and hated at the same time.

Most days Sarah related her own existence to that of a Hollywood super-star constantly hounded by hordes of paparazzi. The restaurants, clubs, boutiques and even grocery stores she chose to frequent have all become hugely popular and exceptionally successful. Sarah knew it had to do with her and the entourage of admirers that she knew preceded her everywhere she went.

Sarah felt as though she used those that surrounded her as much as they used her. Her benefit from the relationship, as she saw it, was a constant stage on which she could exert her sphere of influence over an ever increasing fan base. Those who were watching her and entangling their lives with hers, she felt, were obviously in this for money. She had heard them discussing enterprises and industries that had been built around her and the marketability of her image.

Most of the players broadcasting Sarah liked to remain in the shadows, she knew and could tell because they remained so anonymous. Whenever Sarah was sure she had outed one of the production members or cast extras they were never seen again. She knew they had been replaced or relocated or re assigned to more behind the scenes roles to protect the operational secrecy of the programming. Occasionally, she would catch a real Hollywood superstar making a cameo in her daily life.

Just last week Sarah watched Matt Damon as he was watching her from the far end of the bar at the Columbia Grille on Capitol Hill. Sarah was not an idiot. She knew to only pay attention to Matt through the corners of her eyes and by using the long mirror behind the bar to ensure he never knew she had pegged him as a cast player the minute he entered the door. He had covered up in a scarf, turtle-neck and baseball cap. He was pretending to solve the crossword puzzle in the Washington Post he had picked up off of the bar, but she knew he was really taking notes on her and her mannerisms. Sarah was a frequent target of the Hollywood types interested in “studying” the common American.

Sarah knew that she was the whole package. Not only had the infrastructure been put into place to capture every second of her life from the bedroom to the office to bathroom, but she knew there was a seven year archive a footage that was ready for release but was worth nothing without her authorization. Sarah had matured past her embarrassment and anger over the complete violation of her private life and the private lives of her friends, family and co-workers by the plague of content-hungry information brokers that she knew had sold her soul – or at least her image and everything personal about her – to the insatiable appetite of what had become her public.

Sarah also knew that she could never acknowledge the Sarah Simpson industry directly. If she did she knew it would only contribute to the industry’s ultimate demise and her personal fall from grace. Sarah knew she was not supposed to know anything. Her celebrity status and popularity was based on her qualities as the perfect unsuspecting citizen. Sarah knew the masses of her audience were afar – mostly on the west coast and probably overseas. Her words and her actions were admired from huge distances via multiple broadband internet streams broadcast by her watchers. Some of them she knew had grown to admire her, as well. That acceptance helped her to gain the understanding that she had about her situation – an understanding that she knew she was not supposed to have.