He doesn’t know why he’s here.

The man in the striped shirt sits among well-dressed women, feeling like he’s both out of place and being melded into the scene.

Is he even a man anymore?

He doesn’t know.

He looks down, watching as his shape is gradually twisted into something he does not recognize. The others are blissfully unaware—no, not unaware.

They know. They are blissfully aware.

With every minute that passes, every sip of tea or bite of a scone, he loses bits and pieces of himself. They are plucked off him like ripe fruit, vanishing each time food or drink is consumed.

He wonders how they must taste.

They keep on plucking and plucking, and he feels himself start to meld into the mold.

One of them, a blonde, laughs at a joke.

Another smiles with far too many teeth as she bites into yet another scone.

One of the women is eyeing him with a ferocious hunger, wanting to rip and tear him away until he’s nothing but background noise to their everlasting party.

How did he get here?

Who is he?

Why does his shirt have stripes?

He doesn’t know. Doesn’t want to know.

He feels them begin eating at his mind.

He allows it to happen, silently hoping that once he passes on, he will be himself once more.

And so he sits, a mask of false happiness on his face as he is devoured by the maidens of this eternal table.