Contextual Mediocrity, Pt. III

Before his eventual slip, Nicholas was a very normal young man. Like most American males his age, he hadn't cared much for school, but he was not dumb. He had a tight-knit group of friends, but he was not popular. He did not earn stellar grades, nor did he excel at any sport, and he wasn't inclined toward any of the cheesy social clubs or nerdy groups that met after class to debate school politics or play chess. He was not a theater geek, a band geek, or a choir geek. The idea of staying after-hours repulsed him.

He preferred, instead, solitary activities where he could enjoy himself in peace. He loved to watch movies and television. The screen mesmerized him. His laptop quickly became his closest companion: he could download all the entertainment his heart desired at the click of a button. He devoured entire albums by all the latest artists before supper, and for dessert he would surf the web looking for pornography, masturbating grimly before falling asleep and repeating the whole process the next day. The limitless possibilities of the internet dazzled him. Everything and everyone interconnected, hooked up twenty-four-seven, and all the collected information capable of being delivered to you instantaneously anywhere on the globe.

It wasn't long before Nick stopped leaving the house, and soon, even his bedroom. The only connections he formed with other people were through online gaming, their disembodied voices melting into the digital cacophony that became his daily life, his paradise, his prison. He texted and emailed and downloaded and uploaded and played and slept and masturbated each day away. He lost all interest in women. The violence he could engage in through stereoscopic three-dimensional interactive formats replaced movies, and soon even the virtual warfare grew stale. His palette deadened, his senses dulled by the constant stream of stimulation. He felt naked without his headphones. He appeared disoriented when he wasn't staring at a monitor or television screen. His parents couldn't reach him. He dropped off the planet and entered a void of isolation, a self-imposed solitary confinement, away from the world and all the people in it. Graduation came and went, and he occupied his time with his electronic friends, which he believed were far more loyal than their human counterparts. Ambition withered away like a neglected flower. He only opened his mouth to consume nutrition and fluids.

This was two months prior to his fateful meeting with the fat bearded man who could not see or hear.

It did not happen all at once, but neither could Nicholas pinpoint exactly when it started happening. He simply stopped enjoying things. Television programs became boring and repetitive. Video games stirred no excitement in him. Music became static, a noise that made no sense to him. He became sterile and hollow. He reached deep down inside himself...and found nothing.

Nicholas came to the horrifying conclusion, finally after much worrying, that his life had ceased to have meaning or purpose. But he could not communicate this to anyone. When he tried, it was like pounding his head against a brick wall. He had the distinct impression that he was talking to Charlie Brown's parents. He began to fear that he would never figure out or be able to articulate what he was looking for, what was lacking. The hole inside him grew deeper and more foreboding, and nothing would fill it. Depression fell over him like a parasitic pall, draining his will to live. The worst part was that it seemed absolutely no one understood. Or maybe they simply refused to listen.

The ultimate realization came when he left the office of the therapist who could not hear him. Nicholas put his feet on the sidewalk, peered down the street, looked left and right, and became aware that no one was going to listen to him. No matter how hard he tried, he could not force any of these people to comprehend him. And nor could they be comprehended. Pedestrians crossed streets, horns blared, commuters adjusted their radios and gave strangers the bird. Nick was suddenly stricken by the harshest sensation of loneliness he had ever experienced in his life, and it filled him with despair. He was completely alone.