"Wait." Simon locks eyes with the manager. "I know that look."
He parts the crowd of teens and vaults onto the counter. Perching atop it like the world's most fabulous gargoyle, he stares into the managers soul.
"That look in your eyes, the wordless screaming of a spirit shackled by regret, the lifeless resignation to a world of beige and boredom as your spirit is inexorably crushed by the weight of the mundane, that beautiful despair!"
With those last two words he leaps to his feet. Standing on the counter he extends one hand towards the
Manager. "Come with me! Ascend from this bitter, broken hell!"
He turns slightly, including his fans in his speechifying.
"Your friends, your family, this pathetic world you see around us, they all conspire to convince you you are trapped! That you must go on with your mundane life, that you have no choice, you cannot be free!
I am here to tell you, it's all a lie!
You can leave your life behind, defy society's expectations! You can discard the paper doll world you've been forced into; you can be real."
He looks again to the manager, still reaching out to him.
"There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. Come with me if you want to live."