Some people have the ability to talk to strangers on the phone for hours. They just pick up and know that on the other side sits somebody with the ability to speak. They know that these scattered mumbles and fragments of words actually mean something, and they begin responding with their own voices. Connection happens. It flows naturally between two people breathing into the void.
Talking with each other, being able to communicate—it’s such a blessing, isn’t it?
But what would have happened in a world where there were no cognitive power to neither speak nor listen? Would that world have been much more peaceful? No endless chatter from the bullshit species saying weird and hollow things. If that were so, I’d have gotten freedom from those boisterous network calls asking me if I want free minutes. I know these aren’t free minutes—they’re just a trap, a ploy to catch me in their scheme for spending more money on their networks or whatever product they’re pushing. That’s a scam in every way. I can’t call out my frustration to her or swear at her because she isn’t listening. It’s just a recorded voice—hollow, indifferent, practicing the art of pretending to care. She can’t listen, and I can’t truly express my hatred.
Well, isn’t there something almost beautiful about not being able to hear the negativity and hatred in the world? I think that’s something—some kind of superpower. I kid you not, a being who possesses this power can pass through all the obstacles because he simply isn’t able to listen to the bullshit that surrounds him. I think one of the requirements to live in this world today—other than the usual, boring oxygen, water, cells, atmospheric pressure, the magnetic field—is the ability to unhear things. Just the power to stop listening to the voices around us, the ones that scratch and claw. Sometimes they come from outside, pinching and demanding. But sometimes, they come from inside as well—those inner voices that are sometimes impossible to comprehend, almost like they belong to someone else entirely.
Just imagine the power to pick up the phone and say, “Wrong number. Do not contact again. The person you want to reach is no more.” He died in an accident. That’s how it could be explained. But the truth is deeper than that—somewhere between that moment and now, he stopped listening to all the voices. Maybe he lost the ability to hear them. Maybe he chose to shun them completely—every single one, from outside and from inside both. The voices that whispered how precious this life is. The ones insisting he should feel grateful, so grateful, for the things he had. The reminders that he should smile, that he should hope, that tomorrow might be different.
He understood some things very late in his life. Too late. Prayer and wishes, if they come true too late, are no blessing at all—they’re just cruel jokes. It’s too late to smile for them. It’s too late to feel the warmth they were meant to bring.
Their happiness, his happiness, somewhere got dissolved with all the longing and waiting. It dissolved like salt in water, leaving nothing behind but the shell of a person. The lifeless species—that’s what remained. He has simply stopped caring. Stopped being. Stopped trying to remember what it felt like to want something.
It is a state of trance between life and death, a strange and hollow place where the body becomes still with the soul. From the outside, it looks like everything is working. The breath comes and goes. The heart beats its dull rhythm. But inside, he has shunned himself completely. Closed all the doors. He cannot comprehend anything anymore. Cannot understand. Cannot hold onto anything long enough to let it matter. Because somewhere—at some point in this life—there were things that broke him open, things that removed the very essence of what made life feel worth living.
Sometimes the biggest agony of life is this: waiting. Just waiting for life to happen, for it to finally give something back to you. Waiting for the balance to shift. But if it never does, if life remains silent and empty-handed, then the soul begins to rot. It withers. The emotions dry up along with the tears. And what’s left behind is just a body, still breathing, still moving through the world—but hollow. A body staring into the abyss. A consciousness looking into the dark. And then, at some point, the abyss stares back. It sees him. It recognizes him. And in that moment of recognition, there’s a terrible kind of understanding.
Now, when somebody calls on this lifeline number—when someone on the other end is speaking with all their rehearsed enthusiasm about the services this life provides—he simply picks up the call and stays silent. Let them complete their rant. Let them paint their pretty pictures of what could be. But he does not listen to even a word of it. He has activated his ability to unhear everything. To let the sounds wash over him like rain on glass, making noise but leaving no mark.
And when the voice on the other end finally asks—as they always do—”What would you like in this life? What can we offer you?”—he simply says, slowly and without feeling, “Sorry. You have called the wrong number.“
A pause. Confusion on the other end, maybe. Or recognition that this is another lost soul.
“I would have liked to pick something,” he continues, a measured voice. “I would have liked to want something. But I don’t know the value of this life anymore. I can’t remember what it’s supposed to mean.“
And he puts the phone down. He has already gone back to that quiet place between life and death, where nothing reaches him, where nothing hurts anymore because nothing touches him at all.
The person on the other end must be cursing him now. They must be frustrated, confused, angry at the wasted time.
But he… can’t… hear… them.
