Liam continued along his stroll, smiling as a rush of unheard words that weren’t his own collided within his mind. A mother’s innate worries as she found herself stuck in traffic, a son’s unvoiced, juvenile hatred at not being allowed to hang out with his friends after school, a young girl’s pining thoughts as she tore the petals from a flower, one by one while seated on a bench beside the small park at the center of town. He heard it all, from high to low, from good to bad, from the happiest squeal to the most the lethargic inward sigh. His smile mirrored those of some of the people he passed, and how dearly he wished to reach out and hug some others, if only it wouldn’t have caused confusion for the unknowing receiver.

He was so concentrated and taken in by the thoughts swirling around him in an intangible sea that he failed to hear the shout of warning coming from behind.

“—out!” his ears finally perked with interest a moment too late. Coming from the haze of thoughts, Liam was lurched back into reality as a weight rammed into the back of his left leg. The collision sent a pain shooting throughout his backside as he fell to the sidewalk on his hands and knees with an audible oomph!

He remained still for a minute, momentarily stunned, before he shook his head and turned to find the source of the sudden commotion. Behind him lay a black bike, and beside it scrambled a kid, a scrawny little fellow who was rushing to pick up his backpack and its fallen contents from the ground. His hands were busy stuffing loose papers and books and a hat and shirt and pens and pencils back into his backpack, but his eyes were situated on Liam, his brow creased with a line of worry, his lips moving frantically, and it was only then that Liam realized that the kid was talking to him.

“—okay?” he caught the end of his question. “I’m so, so, so sorry, oh my god, I don’t even know what happened. I guess I zoned out for a second or something, and then the next thing I knew, you were there, and the brakes weren’t even gonna think of working that time, and well, yeah. I guess. Shit, man, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

The kid’s motions stilled for a moment, and his brow creased even more as he stared back imploringly through Liam’s wide eyes.

But Liam wasn’t about to respond.

His voice, was all he could think. It’s new. Brand new.

He focused his thoughts with every fiber of his being, concentrated on zoning in on this kid before him as he ignored the scrapes throbbing at the base of his right hand. And the more he centered his mind on this kid, the wider his eyes grew with each passing second until the kid’s strikingly new voice broke his concentration.

“What is it?”

Liam stared at him for a moment, his eyes still wide with a newborn horror. But he couldn’t voice what he wanted to. The words wouldn’t come, nor would they hold any sense once parting from his mind. And so he dropped his gaze just slightly, catching sight of the kid’s torn jeans. He found his scapegoat. “Your knee’s bleeding.”

The kid grimaced and shrugged. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “But you, are you okay?

Liam’s eyes stayed locked on the kid before him, again unable to respond. For when he listened to this kid, he heard something he had not heard for quite some time.

He heard silence.