It was his parents’ Friday night soiree. He never understood what that meant except it brought a lot of people to the apartment. Tonight the place was filled with them, all three levels. People always frightened him.
He could hear rivers of conversation bursting everywhere, loud, whispering — always insistent, penetrating, demanding. There was the sound of music as some of the guests played their own compositions. Tape players exposed other sounds, all of them meaningless to him and equally exhausting. He wished he could shut it all out and make it go away. He knew his father didn’t like it much either, but put up with it because his mother demanded it.
He remembered he still had to tell his father about being made King today at school. King of Eolim. He looked towards the dresser, on wh
