The Volume Knob
One morning Thomas woke to discover a small brass dial had appeared on his chest, just below the collarbone. It was about the size of a quarter, slightly warm to the touch, and labeled, simply, "EVERYTHING."
It was turned to 11.
He tried turning it down. It clicked satisfyingly, the way old radios do. He felt a brief moment of peace.
Then it clicked back to 11 on its own.
He tried again. 10... 9... 8... The world grew quieter. Colors softened. His neighbor's dog became merely present rather than an event. He felt his shoulders drop from where they'd been living near his ears.
7... 6...
At 6, he could no longer taste the emotions of the person who had made his coffee beans. This was a relief he hadn't known he needed.
5... 4...
At 4, he stopped noticing the microexpressions on strangers' faces. People on the bus were just people. Not puzzles. Not concerns. Just people, existing near him, undemanding.
3... 2...
At 2, he could watch the news without his body remembering every tragedy for the rest of the week.
1...
At 1, he felt almost nothing. The world was simple. The world was quiet. The world was bearable.
He walked outside.
The sun was just a sun. The birds were just birds. A child cried somewhere, and Thomas noticed it the way you'd notice a cloud passing—there, then gone, then forgotten.
He went to work. He sat through meetings. He didn't absorb anyone else's anxiety. He didn't carry home the mood of the office like a coat he couldn't remove.
At dinner, his wife asked how his day was.
"Fine," he said, and meant nothing by it.
She looked at him strangely.
That night, he lay awake, the dial at 1, feeling peaceful.
Feeling nothing.
Feeling peaceful because he was feeling nothing.
Was this what everyone else experienced? This... simplicity?
He reached for the dial.
He turned it back to 11.
The world roared in. Every sensation, every emotion, every flicker of light and hum of electricity and unspoken tension between every person in every house on his street.
His body remembered itself. His chest tightened. His skin prickled with information.
But he could feel his wife's breathing beside him. He could feel the specific quality of the moonlight through the window. He could feel the house settling, the neighborhood dreaming, the planet turning.
He felt everything.
"That's not how knobs work," he told his chest, in the dark, turning it back down to 10.5.
His chest did not respond, but he could feel that it was hurt by his tone.
He apologized.
The dial stayed where he'd set it.
10.5.
A compromise.