“I don't think you're listening.”
Nicholas Allen tightened his lips and tried to focus on the large, sweaty, bearded figure seated in front of him. “Hello?” he asked again. “Are you hearing me?” a little louder this time.
The fat man clicked his ball-point pen and scribbled on a clipboard clenched in his left hand. His words were cold, clinical, calculated. “Are you suicidal?”
Nick had never known how to answer this question. “If I had a dime for every time I've heard this in the last two weeks...frankly I'm tired of answering it.” He shifted in his chair. “What does that even mean?”
Silence. Scribbling. “And when's the last time you tried to hurt yourself?” he murmured, detached.
Nicholas didn't care to define the difference between attempting something and actually accomplishing it. It no longer mattered. This was the third therapist he'd been plopped down in front of in a fortnight. It was all the same. They couldn't hear what he said, hear another human being trying to communicate something so simple and primal and necessary. His throat began to tighten, the syllables that tumbled forth choked and half-wrought with the same sense of helplessness and desperation that now permeated his life, looming over him like an ominous thunderhead, black as pitch: “I need help.”
He cleared his throat, eyes never leaving the clipboard. “That's what we're here for. Now, what's your date of birth again?”
Nick sank backwards into his seat. “November fourteenth.”
“Your age.”
“Twenty.”
“And that scar on your arm? How old is it?”
The first time Nicholas cut himself, it was rather by accident. Unsure of how sharp a lone razor blade really was, and how effective it would be in ending his life, he had conducted a quick experiment on the back of his arm, well underneath his wrist and to the left. It looked like such a simple thing, surprisingly pliable, unassuming. It did not appear sinister. It did not suggest, through any aspect of appearance or by method of handling, that it was capable of inflicting destruction and pain. He had closed his eyes and sliced blindly, swinging his hand in a rapid motion. The skin cleaved immediately, a large vertical maw suddenly appearing where flesh once was. It was very deep and red. Blood flowed readily and covered his arm, quickly drying into a sticky sleeve, and the excess dripped with unexpected speed, increased, then regularly fell in a straight line like a faucet that's been opened part way.
“Nicholas?”
He shook the memory away and refocused on the present. He reminded himself to try to stay in the moment. “I don't want to talk about it.”
Scribble. Click. “Have you ever attempted suicide?” the fat man repeated, sounding either bored or annoyed. Perhaps both.
Nick drew a deep breath into his lungs. “I know what you're thinking, so I'm not going to answer your question. I don't even know what it means. Yes, I am feeling suicidal.” He became emboldened, sure that he was going to make a dent. “But I am not scared or confused because I want to die; I am confused as to how you do not. How everyone does not. I don't know how to survive this...whatever this is. It doesn't make sense anymore. I don't know how to carry on in this world. What I need,” he leaned forward, “is for someone to listen. Please. I just want to talk. We need to talk.” The man clicked his pen, and rolled it over in his fingers, his expression unchanged. “Okay?”
There was a precarious moment of silence, and Nicholas Allen could almost feel his life hanging in the balance, a sensation he was becoming all too accustomed to, and he shivered in its wake as it passed. The therapist frowned and looked back down at his desk, then leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “I think we should refer you to another facility. You see, that's not exactly how the process works...”
But Nick didn't hear the rest. He put on a calm face and began considering all the ways he could get out of this facility as quickly as possible. His deepest fears had been confirmed, but by this point he had learned how to hide his anxiety, the terrible monster that sneaked in and grabbed him at will. By letting them see it, you were asking to get committed. And Nick didn't want to be committed again. He knew exactly what he wanted, he had made up his mind as soon as he realized this one was deaf too. If no one could hear him, if no one could hear anything anymore, then he saw only one option.
He wanted to die. Tonight.

A strange darkness descended from overhead and splashed onto the table, bathing Emily and her immediate surroundings in a warm glow as the restaurant dimmed its lights for the dinner shift. Ariel sat directly across from her, but she appeared not to notice, her eyes focused intensely on her cell phone and thumbs working furiously, pounding out a seemingly endless stream of essay-length text messages. Emily chose not to ponder what on earth her friend could have to say that was so important that she couldn't even focus on her food or the drinks they'd ordered. She sighed and laid her head on her hand and looked out across the crowded dining room, surveying the young smiles and grins, the laughs and guffaws, and the beginning hints of slurred speech that would soon become more and more pronounced as the night continued and the guests that began filtering in consumed more and more. Directly to her left was a particularly young couple, definitely not part of the prime time bar crowd, who had finished their meal a long time ago and were now picking at the remains of bones of barbecued wings, french fries, and seasoned mozzarella sticks. The boy had a bowl of black hair, the bangs of which nearly covered his eyes and he had to continuously brush them away to get a better look at who, Emily assumed, must have been his girlfriend (or at the least, date for the night): a dangerously beautiful brunette, with stern eyes and a twitch in her lips that indicated some sort of experience or wisdom beyond her years. She intimidated him, Emily could tell. But he held his own...he met each gaze, smiled at the right moments, laughed at all her jokes, kept pace in the conversation. The girl was clearly enjoying herself, but the young man was hopelessly in love. It was written all over his face, and he was acutely aware of this, constantly having to strain to not look so goofily smitten. Emily's interest was momentarily held as she took all this in, and within a moment she could tell, this smoldering brunette was going to take this boy's virginity tonight. The scene pinched her heart slightly, and she let her mind wander, remembering when she was that young and headstrong, how the boys used to lie down at her feet.
Meanwhile she could see, to her right, the bartender in another section, clad in a tight black vest, restlessly cleaning glasses and setting them on the polished wood surface upside down, paying no attention to the task at hand. Instead he was focused on Ariel, who was now slumped backward in her seat, still staring at her phone with a detached, glazed-over look, and Emily could feel that he wanted her. She wondered what that must feel like now, to be the center of attention: to know that every man in the room who saw you, even glanced at you in passing, instantly wanted to fuck you. But she let it go, because deep down she knew that not even Ariel was aware of this or could let the whole ego-trip thing go to her head. She was too wrapped up in her Blackberry to know what was even going on around her, let alone the fact that she was supposed to be on a dinner date with her so-called best friend, whom she had not seen in a very long time and that this should be a very enjoyable evening indeed. Instead they had spoken for about five minutes, then the appetizers and drinks had arrived and Emily watched, feeling somewhat dejected and ignored, as her former college roommate simply forgot she existed. She sighed and drummed her fingers on the table, trying to amuse herself, unsure of how to proceed. It wasn't that Emily was particularly bitter or resented the fact that Ariel had her own set of priorities and interests (like deciding not to finish school) that were completely separate from her own. Ariel liked working in a department store, selling superficial, expensive clothes to superficial, expensive people, and spending at least a quarter of each paycheck (after the rent and utilities at her downtown apartment were all accounted for) at any given number of clubs and glitzy joints that pumped obnoxious electronic music through the speakers and allowed her a sort of detached enjoyment—she could dance and flirt with whoever she wanted, even grind right up against them, without ever actually having to get too close—and Emily knew this. It was just that when they actually decided to get together and sit down (which was happening less and less frequently, maybe once every two months), she found she simply had nothing to say. It was as if they were living on two separate planets now, one where Ariel existed in her own little bubble and floated around, poking other bubbles curiously and then reverting to its own isolated, fixed position, while Emily meanwhile was getting caught up in the void of the real world: commuters and traffic and nine-to-five and coffee bars and cigarette breaks and Letterman. What it really came down to, it dawned on her suddenly, was that they had absolutely nothing in common anymore. She had graduated from college over three years ago and moved on; Ariel, on the other hand, seemed to just drift further and further inward, never growing or expanding. Her entire experience and perception of reality was drenched in the music and media that permeated every aspect of daily life, and she did not seem to mind this. Emily, on the other hand, desperately fought and railed against the consumer-machine, trying to maintain some sense of self-control and individuality without forfeiting what she valued most: that primal, deep connection she felt toward other human beings, the part of her that was aching for attention and companionship but always ended up disgusted with what she found waiting behind every door, every phone number, every blind date in every over-crowded, noisy cafe.
She snapped out of this tangential train of thought and realized she, too, had started to daydream and drift off in her own head. She suddenly felt very annoyed. She no longer valued their time spent together, watching Ariel text her boyfriends and laugh at inside jokes. Instead, she wanted to go home. She eyed the young couple to her left, who were beginning to shuffle out of the booth, with envy. The boy pulled out his wallet and dropped a hefty tip on the table, then flashed his date a smile and offered up his arm. What a gentleman, Emily thought. That confirmed it: he was definitely going to score. She felt a wistful longing for the days of her youth now, wondering what had happened to that freedom, to the days when she could meet someone's gaze and know precisely, in that moment, that they were seeing her in return, and that connection, that hidden part, would glow vibrantly and confirm what she was experiencing was genuine. She wondered what had happened to her and her friend. No; what had happened to society. To her generation.
“I said, do you think I should try the Yogo-Berry Martini?”
“What?” Emily shook her head and realized Ariel was actually saying something to her. “Oh, I don't know,” she sighed. “Why not?”

Before his eventual slip, Nicholas was a very normal young man. Like most American males his age, he hadn't cared much for school, but he was not dumb. He had a tight-knit group of friends, but he was not popular. He did not earn stellar grades, nor did he excel at any sport, and he wasn't inclined toward any of the cheesy social clubs or nerdy groups that met after class to debate school politics or play chess. He was not a theater geek, a band geek, or a choir geek. The idea of staying after-hours repulsed him.
He preferred, instead, solitary activities where he could enjoy himself in peace. He loved to watch movies and television. The screen mesmerized him. His laptop quickly became his closest companion: he could download all the entertainment his heart desired at the click of a button. He devoured entire albums by all the latest artists before supper, and for dessert he would surf the web looking for pornography, masturbating grimly before falling asleep and repeating the whole process the next day. The limitless possibilities of the internet dazzled him. Everything and everyone interconnected, hooked up twenty-four-seven, and all the collected information capable of being delivered to you instantaneously anywhere on the globe.
It wasn't long before Nick stopped leaving the house, and soon, even his bedroom. The only connections he formed with other people were through online gaming, their disembodied voices melting into the digital cacophony that became his daily life, his paradise, his prison. He texted and emailed and downloaded and uploaded and played and slept and masturbated each day away. He lost all interest in women. The violence he could engage in through stereoscopic three-dimensional interactive formats replaced movies, and soon even the virtual warfare grew stale. His palette deadened, his senses dulled by the constant stream of stimulation. He felt naked without his headphones. He appeared disoriented when he wasn't staring at a monitor or television screen. His parents couldn't reach him. He dropped off the planet and entered a void of isolation, a self-imposed solitary confinement, away from the world and all the people in it. Graduation came and went, and he occupied his time with his electronic friends, which he believed were far more loyal than their human counterparts. Ambition withered away like a neglected flower. He only opened his mouth to consume nutrition and fluids.
This was two months prior to his fateful meeting with the fat bearded man who could not see or hear.
It did not happen all at once, but neither could Nicholas pinpoint exactly when it started happening. He simply stopped enjoying things. Television programs became boring and repetitive. Video games stirred no excitement in him. Music became static, a noise that made no sense to him. He became sterile and hollow. He reached deep down inside himself...and found nothing.
Nicholas came to the horrifying conclusion, finally after much worrying, that his life had ceased to have meaning or purpose. But he could not communicate this to anyone. When he tried, it was like pounding his head against a brick wall. He had the distinct impression that he was talking to Charlie Brown's parents. He began to fear that he would never figure out or be able to articulate what he was looking for, what was lacking. The hole inside him grew deeper and more foreboding, and nothing would fill it. Depression fell over him like a parasitic pall, draining his will to live. The worst part was that it seemed absolutely no one understood. Or maybe they simply refused to listen.
The ultimate realization came when he left the office of the therapist who could not hear him. Nicholas put his feet on the sidewalk, peered down the street, looked left and right, and became aware that no one was going to listen to him. No matter how hard he tried, he could not force any of these people to comprehend him. And nor could they be comprehended. Pedestrians crossed streets, horns blared, commuters adjusted their radios and gave strangers the bird. Nick was suddenly stricken by the harshest sensation of loneliness he had ever experienced in his life, and it filled him with despair. He was completely alone.

Emily could instantly tell the just-turned-twenty-one crowd apart from those who had been frequenting bars and other establishments that served alcohol for years by how loud they talked and laughed. The typical frat boys always made as much noise as possible as they shuffled outside to smoke and then return inside, always checking out the same girls in the booths (like Ariel) on their route to and from, in what she assumed was some sort of primal method of establishing dominance in a pack ruled by seniority.
“Do you think that guy over there is checking me out?” Ariel cocked her head behind her towards the bar, where the bartender was still stealing the occasional glance at their table.
“I don't know.”
“He's kinda cute.”
“I suppose.” Emily noticed Ariel still had her phone in one hand, and she glanced at it occasionally between bites of food.
“Mmm,” Ariel swallowed a mouthful of spaghetti.
Emily crossed her legs and leaned forward. “Here's one for you. I saw this news article online the other day. Says suicide kills more people than car accidents nowadays.”
Ariel took another bite and talked out of a full mouth. “Yeah, I saw that too.”
“What do you think about that?”
“I don't know, I didn't read it. Just saw the headline or something.”
“Well,” Emily stabbed idly at her plate with a salad fork, but she wasn't really hungry. “Isn't that scary though? I mean, what do you think accounts for that?”
Ariel shrugged. “I dunno. Doesn't really affect me.”
“What?”
“What?”
“How can you say that?” She began to feel aggravated. “I think it affects all of us.”
“And I disagree. I'm just fine, and so are you. Right?”
“Well, sure...but...” Emily sighed. She wasn't quite sure anymore.
Ariel dropped her fork and there was a brief silence as it clattered onto the plate. “But what?”
Emily swallowed. “Don't you think that's a big deal?”
“Oh for Christ's sake, Emily, don't do this. I'm trying to have a good time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This. What you always do. Let's just talk about something else. You always want to give some lecture or start a debate.”
“You've barely said more than three words to me since we've been here, and then you come at me with this?” She gritted her teeth. “What the fuck?”
“Don't patronize me. This is so typical of you. I'm not here to argue, and I'm not here to let you put me down just so you can feel superior.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Just because I don't watch the news or read as much as you doesn't mean I'm less intelligent than you.” Ariel narrowed her eyes accusingly.
Emily's eyes widened. “When did I even begin to imply that?” Her voice went up a register. “All I wanted was to have a conversation with you. You know? Actual talking? Instead of just your new favorite songs on the radio or what's on MTV. Don't you remember how to do that?” She put her hands up. “Well, I apologize. I must have been asking for way too much. I'm just wondering when you became so self-absorbed.”
“You know what?” Ariel planted a fist down on the table. “Fuck you. You used to be cool. Then you went to school and decided to get all philosophical and worldly. You haven't even left the United States. What have you done with your life? You work in advertising.”
Emily's face reddened slightly in spite of herself.
Ariel leaned back. “Exactly. You think I'm so shallow and fake. But at least I don't try to be someone I'm not. You know what? You're the one who's fake.”
Suddenly Emily became very confused. “Ariel, wait,” she started.
“No. I'm going to sit here, drink my drink, and then leave. You can...” she waved her hand again, “do whatever.”
She looked around and felt lost. “No, please. I don't want to fight. Ariel? Let's just talk.”
Silence.
“Please. I just want to talk to someone.”

A crisp breeze rolled down the street and nipped at Nicholas's face, and he drew the collar of his jacket up around and his chin and braced himself against the cold.
It was rush hour. All around him, on both sides of the street, pedestrians trudged along back to their homesteads. Working men, men in suits, women in heels, people with coats and blazers and dresses and large hats. None of them looked at each other as they passed, bumping into each other with barely a murmur of apology as they hurried along. Nick saw all this and felt even more despair. He wondered how so many men and women could occupy so small an area and see each other every day, coming and going, yet never even acknowledge them or realize that they were all people, all the same deep down. He wanted to reach out and grab them by their lapels and shout at them, demand that they explain why they had all abandoned their fellow man. An even worse chill was blowing through him, and it wasn't just the weather. It was the cold, impersonal way every person on the street treated each other. For a moment, Nick marveled at the irony of how technology had utterly failed in its one sole purpose: to bring people together. Cell phones and social networking and personal computer tablets. Instant messaging, emails, texts. None of this was improving the way human beings interacted with each other, Nicholas realized. In fact it was having the opposite effect. Technology had revolutionized communication, all right, but it had turned everyone into isolated, solitary beings. A whole new generation of people living a life aesthetic, self-absorbed and tone-deaf. A text has no warmth to it, no real sense of connection or understanding. It is cold and impersonal. It rings false. Friend requests are not friendly. Emails cannot be sealed with a kiss. And you can not hug someone, kiss their lips, feel their heartbeat next to yours, through a video chat. Nicholas watched all the cars rolling up and down the street, breathing and undulating through the natural flow of traffic. It was like a living organism, he noticed, but even the drivers always stared straight ahead or looked at their phones or lit cigarettes. The only time a typical driver on the road ever interacts with another driver, he realized, was out of anger. Someone cut me off. Someone is speeding. Someone forgot to use their turn signal. It was pathetic. Didn't people care about one another anymore?
He saw and felt all these things and shoved his hands in his pockets, looked down at the sidewalk, and began to silently weep as he put one foot in front of the other. Nicholas no longer wanted to be on this planet. He did not want to be alive, not with these people. He thought, what's the point of continuing on if things never get better? If you cannot reach out and touch someone? Humans were not meant to go through this life alone, and what exacerbated his feelings the most was the fact that he had become one of them. He, too, had fallen victim to the new system. Nicholas Allen had been sucked in and now, he feared, he would never return to the real world.
No one paid any mind to the young man shuffling down the street and crying as the sun sunk lower and lower, plunging the world into night.

Ariel sucked down the rest of her margarita in one long, exaggerated slurp and lightly pushed the glass toward the center of the table where it joined the other three. Emily wore a perpetual frown on her face and kept looking around, mostly staring down, occasionally looking back at her friend, wondering if she would say anything. Hoping she would say something first.
The two of them had not spoken in over thirty minutes. Once Ariel put up her walls, it was nearly impossible to tear them down. Emily did not even know how to try. What was especially distressing to her at that moment was the inescapable feeling that she had forgotten how to get through to anyone, be it a total stranger or her best friend.
Ariel opened up her purse and began fishing around. Emily, not without a small degree of hesitation, opened her mouth nervously. “Ariel? Are you leaving?”
No response.
“Hello?”
She reapplied some lipstick and examined herself in pocket mirror.
“Please talk to me. Say anything.”
Ariel straightened her hair and scooted to the edge of the booth. “We are two completely different people. And that's fine, we don't have to be like each other. We don't even have to like each other. What use are friends anyway? I have plenty of friends like you, they never did me any good.”
“You've had a lot to drink. I don't think you should be driving.”
Ariel swayed as she rose, and planted a hand on the table. “I don't think we should meet up anymore. Let me live my life, you do the same.”
Tears welled up in Emily's eyes. Her face started to grow red and puffy.
“Oh, come on.” She rolled her eyes. “Look, it's not that big a deal. Okay?” She flashed a false smile, then whirled around and glided her way toward the door, her steps marked by a drunken swagger.
“Ariel, please don't do this.” But her words fell on deaf ears. She sat in a sort of stunned silence for a moment, and looked around the restaurant. Most of the patrons had left, drunks were now grabbing their keys and shuffling toward the door. She glanced at the bartender, who looked away quickly and pretended he hadn't been listening and observing. He looked back. Their eyes met. He shrugged.
A moment had passed while Emily paid her bill, when suddenly a car horn sounded outside followed by a god-awful screech. She turned on her heel and ran outside.

Nick approached the intersection and wiped tears off his cheeks, sniffing loudly. His heartbeat singularly pushed him along. What happened next was fast and nearly imperceptible. A harsh squeal of brakes, an abruptly loud car horn. A feeling of something extremely heavy and powerful slamming into his side. All of the breath being forced from his lungs. The ground falling away from his feet, a view of the sky that rotated, glimmered in twilight, and then concrete rushing up to meet him. A brief sensation of extreme pain. Blackness.
Ariel Schuler stared straight ahead, unable to believe her eyes. Her knuckles held the steering wheel in a death grip and turned white. For a moment she could not think, was paralyzed by shock, and then quickly yanked her seatbelt off and leaped from the car, ran to where the boy was lying on the ground, unmoving, and her heels nearly slipped in spatters of blood and chunks of hair and flesh that surrounded the body. She had struck him with her car, catapulting him ten feet in the air where he twisted horizontally before colliding with the pavement. His head had hit first.
Suddenly Emily was at her side, crying and hysterical. Ariel merely stared at the lifeless form of the young man. She did not know how much time passed while she tried to make sense of the scenario. A strange silence enveloped the previously chaotic street that deafened Ariel until the faint wail of sirens could be heard from far off, rushing to the scene, but all she could say when the paramedics and eventually police officers arrived, over and over, shaking her head, was “I never saw him.”