People will be happy to give up most of their culture for the assurance that the tiny bit that comes through is safe and clean.

White noise.

Imagine a world of silence where any sound loud enough or long enough to harbor a deadly poem would be banned. No more motorcycles, lawn mowers, jet planes, electric blenders, hair dryers. A world where people are afraid to listen, afraid they'll hear something behind the din of traffic. Some toxic words buried in the loud music playing next door. Imagine a higher and higher resistance to language. No one talks because no one dares to listen.

The deaf shall inherit the earth.

And the illiterate. The isolated. Imagine a world of hermits.

Another cup of coffee, and I have to piss like a bastard. Henderson from National catches me washing my hands in the men's room and says something.

It could be anything.

Drying my hands under the blower, I yell I can't hear him.

"Duncan!" Henderson yells. Over the sound of water and the hand dryer, he yells, "We have two dead bodies in a hotel suite, and we don't know if it's news or not. We need Duncan to make the call."

I guess that's what he says. There's so much noise.

In the mirror, I check my tie and finger-comb my hair. In one breath, with Henderson reflected next to me, I could race through the culling song, and he'd be out of my life by tonight. Him and Duncan. Dead. It would be that easy.

Instead, I ask if it's okay to wear a blue tie with a brown jacket.

Chapter 8

When the first paramedic arrived on the scene, the first action he took was to call his stockbroker. This paramedic, my friend John Nash, sized up the situation in suite 17F of the Pressman Hotel and put in a sell order for all his shares of Stuart Western Technologies.