The Muse When I walked alongisde him into a crowded room, conversations ceased. Heads turned. V oices trailed off. Trains of thought were derailed mercilessly by the entrance of the Muse, casting speaker and listener alike onto tracks of sudden quiet. It was a hell of a thing, I suppose, watching the Muse enter a room. I wouldn't know, I'd never seen it. I was just the V oice, which was a funny title, considering he did all the singing. I couldn't hit a concert A to save my life, and he crooned melodies out to crowds of countless thousands, threading harmonies through every drone-display and billboard in the Northern Hemisphere. He didn't talk, though, except to me. It would have been ironic, the way he wore silence into a room, cut to him like a finely tailored suit, if it didn't inevitably morph so swiftly into excited whispers. The quiet never lasted for more than an instant, as if an ytime the Muse walked into a room, every heart stopped for a beat, blood slowing to a sluggish crawl for one single solitary m oment, suspended in time, until the body recalibrated itself, forging itself anew at the anvil of the Muse. He was an empath, a telepathist, a rock star, a product of mutated genetics, a pop star in an otherwise-empty sky: IS THAT HIM? OF COURSE ITS HIM. LOOK AT THAT HAIR! GOTTA BE HIM. They got to me sometimes, those whispers, though they never seemed to bother the Muse. He couldn't hear them at all, as far as I could tell. W e'd walk into a grocer y store, and passers-by would point us out to their fri ends, and I'd tense up just a hair, and the Muse would just stand there blankly , briefly lost in thought in front of the dairy section, until he pointed at the acai berry probiotic yoghurt smoothie,

-this kind-