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eardrums shrieked with pain. My temples threatene d to te ar open. I ran around my house, looking for a way to stop the pain, banging my head on the walls. “ God, please! ” Outside in the street, pandemonium had set in, and people ran fruitlessly in circles, hands over their ears, teeth grinding. Army trucks sped by, heli copters flew over the horizon.
    Peering out my front window, I watched as the people in the street stumbled and fell. Blood burst from their ears, running down their necks and shoulders. I could see them screaming but I could not hear them. In the distance, a car swerved into a tree and its occupant spilled into the road like dirty laundry. He rolled around holding hi s head , his hands stained bright red. Those who had remained in their homes came running outside, blood spitting from their ears onto the ground, long trails of red forming behind them , turning the street into some bad abstract painting.
    My brain felt like it was being stabbed with screwdrivers, the pressure in my head swelling until I thought my eyes would shoot out of the sockets and run down the window pane .  Still the sou nd rose in pitch and intensity.
    All of us now. Dogs. H owling. Begging for a reprieve.
    “ Dear , God! ” I pleaded repeatedly, as if a man who had shunned the church eons ago would suddenly get a personalized letter from the Almighty. Of course not; my yelling and wailing went unheard even to me. “ Oh my God! Make it stop! ”
Outside people writhed on the ground. The sun began to set.
    Finally , the window exploded. 
    And s omething in my head popped.
    I felt hot, sticky liquid running down my fingers. Pulling my hands away from my ears , I saw blood flowing down my wrists and dripping onto the carpet. I grabbed the nearest whiskey bottle and drank until it was empty. At some point I landed f ace first on the floor.  Waves of nausea rolled over me before I finally passed out.
     
    VI
     
    When I woke up, there was no more pain. People were walking in the streets, helping one another up. Everyone ’ s ears were coated in blood.
    I have been scared of many things in life, most notably my own failure. My first novel was well received in the underground market, my second not so much, and the third largely ignored. I had spent many years with writing groups. I read as much classic literature as I could. I disciplined myself to turn out only the most quality narratives I could create. At every turn, the nation instead emptied its pockets for stories that were written f or a dollar, not an aesthetic. What wa s worse, I had thought I could spread my love of the writ ten word to my students, only to be thwarted at every turn by a technological revolution that twisted language into an abomination of inhuman laziness; I wanted to scream the day I graded my f irst paper written in Leet .
    When the world went deaf, I found myself with renewed hope that literature, once again, would take precedent as the most popular form of entertainment. What good was a sitcom or an action film without sound?  How interesting was a rock and rol l band that couldn ’ t be heard?
    While people ran in the streets, bleeding from their ears, crying an d banging pots beside their heads , while society ’ s dregs slipped in and out of homes and businesses, taking advantage of this new opportunity to move undetected and steal whatever they wanted , and while religious zealots everywhere sacrificed goats and cats to a new angry God that wanted us to suffer eternal silence , I turned back to my stories. For weeks, I ignored the madness outside my window, and wrote all day and all night, some of the best mater ial I have ever produced. 
    This was all a few months ago.
    The world has resumed a sense of normalcy, if you can call the myriad sign language classes at every church, school, and community center normal. The ground ’ s bloodstains were washed away with weeks of street cleaning. There was a mad dash for televisions that offered