Hearing Things

People are talking to themselves; in the streets, on the trains, in cars and on the buses, you hear them, murmur whisper roar. A cluster of people with invisible friends. And just as you're writing them off as yet more burnt-out urban crazies, they turn their heads and you see the flashing earmuff of the bluetooth generation. How connected does one man need to be? Walking around with the world in his ear, babbling with radiation. Because you never know when the call's gonna come... And notice I focus mainly on the male here, because it seems to be a mostly masculine preoccupation. Maybe men just need to feel more needed. The urge to remain in touch justifying the jewelery of the disabled. And as they wear their pieces, like medallions of self-importance, so that at any time, at any place, with only one limb free or less, they can scream to each other in the static, they raise their volume as their relevance diminishes.