The Headphone Society

I sit on the bus and as I look around I see that I'm not the only member of the Headphone Society on board. I have my headphones on and that means that I’m not going to speak to anybody, unless of course they have a cigarette that I could bum off of them.

We – The Headphone Society – don’t have meetings or anything. There is no membership fee, save the price of music. But some assholes still manage to get in free. If we had some sort of head committee we’d probably kick them out, but that cut into the interpersonal activity avoidance time.

We all ride around the biosphere in our musical bubble, oblivious to the world that moves around us. The eyes blur over when we’re engrossed in the auditory pleasures being whispered into our ears. We break the organic flow, step out in traffic when we're not supposed to and we never pay attention when someone starts to talk to us.

And then we look at them as if it's them that’s being the dick.

It's not as bad as the people who sit on the bus and discuss Chomsky or other brilliant literature. For sure it's like a verbal make-out session. You know that all they want to do is fuck each other but they're too afraid to shut up and just dive in tongue first.

Then there's the asshole that sits in the back of the bus yammering away on his cell phone.

"Yeah, I totally made her suck my dick."

He says, "had to get her drunk before she'd let me drop the pants."

As he's laughing and grandstanding all I can do is turn the volume up on my Discman. I’d get up and punch the horndog, but there’s a good tune pumping into my ears. I'm old school. It's a funny concept, that because I use technology based on lasers - fucking lasers man - I'm old school. I don't like mp3 players; they go against what music is supposed to be. An album goes on and it gets listened to from beginning to end, which is why Discmans will always be my Headphone Society weapon of choice.

The woman sitting in front of me turns around and frowns at me and I stare back blankly.

I’m like, listen, its my eardrums that I’m damaging, its not as if I’m giving you ass cancer or anything. But of course I don’t say anything, I just stare into the back of her head and shake my head as I curl my lips in unpleasant manner.

She gets off at her stop and on steps a blonde with small tits and a tiny ass and a white cord dangling from her ears to her waist. They all wear the same uniform. I’d catch her eyes and flash her The Society’s secret symbol, you know, if we actually had one.

But instead I just stare out the window and watch her reflection doing the same on the other side of the bus.