But now I can feel it. We’re standing on the brink, all of us. One more step and there’s no turning back. And still, no one wants to hear it. I tried to interject once, twice, just a thought, a question. But they look at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have. Or maybe I’ve finally found it.

The parlor walls interject noise into our veins like some intravenous drug. Not to heal us but to dull us. Make us forget who we are, what we were. People don’t talk anymore. They don’t think. The government,us firemen, we’ve become intermediaries between reality and a society too scared to face it.

And my wife Mildred,her disposition is so fragile. She’s slipping away, and I can’t reach her. The screen talks louder than I ever could.

If no one else will speak, then I will. Even if it burns me.