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Silence

Alison settles in the back row of Civics class as the other students file in. She drums her pen against her seldom-used textbook. Ear buds deliver music into her head, and she keeps it loud, with the bass cranked up. She likes that she can control the noise that drives into her skull. She wants her brain to throb. It helps with the pain.

State law mandates that, now she's in high school, she be mainstreamed, placed in the same classroom as normal students. This way she'll learn to function in normal society instead of only among her own kind. She'll learn enough to hold down a job of sorts. She'll be able to live in a group home, or maybe even by herself.

Her classmates begin to take their seats, and their minds rave with thoughts. She turns up the volume on her iPod.

Someone purged this morning. Someone got slapped in the face by her mother last night. Someone lost their cherry. Someone got early acceptance to Stanford. Someone likes this boy. This boy likes someone. A constant riot of thoughts.

But Alison can't hear them. Her brain is wired wrong. Non-permeable is the current term in favor. The less polite term is brain deaf.

All at once, everyone laughs at a joke she doesn't hear. And even if they'd spoken it aloud, she probably wouldn't have understood it.

She tries to turn up the volume again, but it's already as far as it will go.