KENNEBUNK, ME—Springing out of his characteristic ennui immediately upon hearing the knock at the restroom’s door, local man Ethan Finney reportedly announced, “Someone’s in here,” Friday at Sunflower Café in the first real assertion of his own existence in months. “One second! I’m in here!” said Finne, affirming the physical reality of his own being in a manner he had habitually avoided for the past three months, before going on to suggest that his place in the universe possessed purpose, meaning, and value that demanded others acknowledge his presence as a living being with emotions and sentience. “I’ll be out soon! Can you just wait? [I am real. I am present. I exist. Please, you have to understand. I am real. See me. Just see that I exist.]” At press time, Finney was spotted apologizing for taking so long as he hurried out of the bathroom in a reversion to the wraithlike state of sheer self-effacement that has defined nearly all of his adult life.

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