>            Faceless Crowd...

    There was a girl, around fifteen or sixteen, standing in the corner of the room. I could see her, just simply standing there, with her arms folded and a happy little smile twisted across her lips. She did nothing to stand out, but could never quite fit in. Not around here. Not where hysterics were the normal, and therefore the expected, response that we most often received.

    I felt a tiny tinge of guilt flare inside of me, seeing her standing there by herself, especially since I knew that her chances of ever getting this opportunity again were more than unlikely.

    I was guessing she was trying to be discreet. Trying her hardest not to get in our way. Little did she know how much we all noticed her. Little did she know that it was people like her that we appreciated the most.

    Breaking away from the one-sided conversation that someone was having with me (not that I'd ever been really paying much attention), I walked over to her, the same smile she wore spread across my own face.

    "Hello."

    She looked almost surprised, seeing me there. As if she hadn't seen me coming towards her, even though I knew she had.

    Her smile seemed to grow a bit brighter when she looked up. "Hello," she repeated, her head tilting in a small nod as she did.

    I stuck out my hand, starting to introduce myself. "I'm..."

    "I know who you are," she cut me off, mid sentence. I could almost feel the flush making it's way across both of our faces.

    "Of course you do..."

    "I hadn't meant to bother you," she said.

    "Ah... you aren't bothering me."

    "Not yet, anyway."

    Now it was my turn to smile.

    "Your brother's calling you..." her voice trailed off, as she glanced in his direction. He was standing there, hands on hips, a stern look spread across his face. For a younger brother, I noted inside my mind, he was quite demanding sometimes.

    "Oh. Well, I should probably -" she cut me off again.

    "Go. And have a good show."

    I bowed my head in response. "As long as you enjoy it."

    She smiled. "I always do."

    I left her, walking in my brothers direction, turning back to see her before I left hadn't even crossed my mind. My brother was rattling off random orders and things that I was supposed to remember for the show tonight.

    I stood on stage, no less than an hour later, looking into the crowd from my position from behind the microphone. I was looking to see if I could find that girl that I had talked to backstage... but I couldn't remember what she looked like. I couldn't remember the smile that she wore or the color of her hair or even the clothes she had on.

    I cursed myself, almost wishing she had screamed or cried or rattled off words off adoration. Maybe I could remember her then. Maybe I would remember her then.

    I looked into the audience during the rest of the show, thinking that if I saw her then maybe it would click somewhere inside of my head.

    It didn't, though.

    Not because I hadn't seen her, but because I hadn't seen anyone. The audience melted and molded and blurred into eachother. I didn't know what it was, but I couldn't make out a face in the crowd. Whether it was the lights, or the commotion, the openmouthed screams they all seemed to voice at the same exact time that rattled my ear drums, along with my brain.

    I shook my head on the bus that night, my eyes closed and my heart still pounding from the concert we'd put on. The show had been awesome, the crowd had rocked... but I couldn't help thinking that something was missing.

    It wasn't that I'd fallen in love with the girl backstage. It wasn't even that I'd wished I had gotten to know her better. It was more the fact that she wasn't the only one, and that she never would be. There would always be girls that I saw, that I couldn't remember, and not for the lack of trying.

    When you live in a world that I do, filled with people and names and meet and greet sessions, no one stands out anymore. Not even the people that seemed the most memorable of the crowd.

    I regretted, at that moment, not turning back to see her when I'd started to walk away. Not because I thought it would have jarred some memory inside of my mind, but because I just simply wished that maybe then she wouldn't know how much she'd faded into the background after our few seconds of conversation we had.

    The next night I stood backstage, looking at the girls that had lined themselves up against the back wall of one of the many "extra rooms" at the venue. They were more members of the nameless, faceless crowd that I'd never really thought about until then. Until I couldn't remember that girls face no matter how hard I'd tried the night before.

    I felt bad for her again... but not because she'd been standing there by herself in the corner of that room. Instead, it was because there was nothing I could do. Not for her, not for any other fan that wanted nothing more then to be a memory we had. There was nothing that I could ever do, to take her out of the position she held. As one of the many, and the unfortunate, members of the faceless crowd.

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