Free King of the Worlds by M. Thomas Gammarino

basic function of art. “Habituation,” Shlovsky wrote, “devours work, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war.… Art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony.” His students usually gave him blank stares when he recited this, so he’d translate it for them: “Art exists to make you babies again.”
    â€œWhy would we want to be babies again? Isn’t education about getting us to stop being babies?”
    â€œIn part, yes, but it’s also to get you to see things, really see them, as if for the first time. We could never hurt one another if only we learned to look with new eyes.”
    â€œBut aren’t babies like naturally really selfish? Don’t you have to teach a baby to be nice?”
    They were right, of course. He was romanticizing. He had this tendency.
    And there was this too: If you checked your omni, you’d find that nearly every combination of five or fewer words that you could think of, however nonsensical, had been documented countless times. The English language itself, one might say, was dying through overuse and becoming one big meta-cliché. Dylan consoled himself with a quote he’d once read from a twentieth-century Earthling scientist: “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” How the unvanquished youth in him hoped it was so!
    This was as close as Dylan ever got to praying anymore, and it ended, as per some prayers, with gratitude: he thanked the Universe, whatever that might mean, for this beautiful, healthy baby boy who had his eyes.

PART TWO
    STRANGE-MAKER
    Paternity leave wasn’t all so wonderful. Dylan was sleeping fitfully—which was to be expected, what with the new infant. And even if there had been no infant, the fact was, despite his best efforts, he was fundamentally bad at vacationing. Forbidding himself to work inevitably resulted in the accumulation of anxiety. He worried about everything he should be doing, and that anxiety steadily built up steam until on the tenth day it found sufficient cause to explode: he’d taken the last of the Cochlerin several days ago, and damn it to hell if his ears weren’t still ringing loud as ever. He scheduled a visit with Dr. Cohen for that very afternoon.
    â€œTo be frank with you,” she told Dylan, eyes squinty with concern, “I’ve never seen anything like this. There’s really been no change at all?”
    â€œNone whatsoever.”
    â€œSee, that’s so strange. Ordinarily the Cochlerin should have done most of its work by the fourth or fifth day. I have teenagers who come in here newly deafened every couple of weeks. Do you know that since hair cell regeneration went live, concerts have gotten up to thirty percent louder?”
    â€œThat’s interesting,” Dylan replied, though really he was much more interested in how he was going to get this goddamned ringing to stop.
    â€œSo what do you say we do that hearing test after all?”
    Dylan grudgingly accepted. He already knew what they were going to find: he was growing old.
    He went in the sound booth, pressed buttons when he heard beeps, and repeated after Dr. Cohen words like “baseball,” “hot dog,” and “ansible.”
    â€œOkay, you’re all done,” she said.
    â€œThat’s it?”
    â€œThat’s all she wrote.”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œI hate to tell you this, Mr. Green, but—”
    â€œGive it to me. I’m ready for it.”
    â€œYour hearing is perfectly normal.”
    â€œCome again?”
    â€œYou heard me loud and clear. I have an audiogram here to prove it.”
    â€œReally? Normal?”
    â€œReally normal.”
    â€œSo what does that mean then with regard to the ringing?”
    â€œIt’s tough to say exactly, except that the problem seems to be not with your