(part one)

On the other hand—on the other hand, here, what if words are never enough? What if the universe keeps getting more lonely, and the boy at the newsstand on Fifth will never have to chance to tell anybody how they looked in the orange-white light, whisper secrets about love and beauty and sadness into their ear, peel off a Sunday morning in the haze of unsubstantiated fog; what if we run out of things to say, entirely, to each other, to ourselves. What if my mother never figures out from actions alone that I love her, what if the streets in the city keep getting quieter until nobody makes a single sound? And the buildings echo with the hum of a million computers, but no voices—synchronized silence—a chandelier world.