This Moment: November 17, 2010 1:37 P.M.

The insect buzz of heavy metal is coming from the earphones of a man seated next to me. His large sunglasses are held tightly to his brow by the red bandanna knotted to his head. It is a room with very little light and I wonder what light is it that he is shielding himself from. White noise fills the hollow spaces in this ordered room. Our faces are bathed in a type of incandescent blue from the illuminated light of our computer screens. It is a cinematic space age kind of silence we exist in while we write our emails, then break to tap out our texts. We tell the stories of our lives in installments of one-hundred twenty characters and send them tumbling through the ether. The insistent drum of fingers on keypads is a tumble of rhythm like fingers tapping out chords on a wooden table. We are insular musicians, sending failed compositions to those we hold in our hearts, our heads, our hands, rather than look up and around us or peer into the eyes of the man seated next to that we're sharing our intimate air. We are all like the man in dark sunglasses. Not one of us dare to look over our computer screen and lock eyes. In this room, we are all cowards insulated in a thick wrapping of loneliness, hoping that someone will make the first move, look up, and see us.