Microphone

There have never been more opportunities

to make yourself known to more people

than there are with modern technology.

The downside is that unless

you try to reform your vices

the you that gets known to more people

is an ignorant, arrogant lout.

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More people know what you really are when you amplify your message.

___________________________________________________

Microphone

The high-school gym smelled of varnish and cleaning solution. Folding chairs were scraping on the floor and the banner above the stage read: PUBLIC COMMENT — LIVESTREAMED.

The boy, fifteen or at most sixteen, took the podium in a red cap with his chest puffed out, cinching the microphone with two hands cinched as though he meant to bend it. “They’re lying to your kids,” he said before his name was called. “About climate, about vaccines. They poison you with woke garbage.”

He held the mic so close that it kept banging on his upper lip. The amp shrieked with feedback. Laughter scattered along the bleachers. He started screaming. “You can’t silence the truth!” The feedback only got worse.

His science teacher sat in the front row, arms folded. He had been teaching for thirty years. In that time, he had corrected thousands of uninformed, biased, and offensive essays, and had learned how to deal with excited and excitable kids. Still, a shock of irritation went through him. “Shouting doesn’t change the facts,” he said loudly but evenly. Then he lowered his voice so that people had to strain to hear him: “Turn down the volume, son. You want to protect kids? So do I. Ask any question you want, and I’ll try to answer it.”

The boy’s face turned bright red. The word “question” sounded like a trap. He chopped the air with his left hand while screaming even more loudly into the microphone. “He’s a liar! Don’t listen to him! Education is indoctrination! The deep state is everywhere!” His voice got higher and louder with each phrase. When he reached “everywhere,” his voice cracked like a boy soprano’s at puberty. A burst of laughter thundered through the gym, drowning out the amplification system.

But the monitor by the stage showed heart and flame emojis popping up all over the livestream. The boy beamed in the face of the laughter. “See?” he screamed. “They know I’m right!” He jabbed the mic toward the crowd as if the emojis were all the proof he needed.

The teacher clenched his fists, then opened his palms on his knees. He wanted to run over and pull the plug on all this, but he knew that showing anger in the face of anger only makes things worse. He stood instead, continuing to speak in the measured tone that made people lean toward him. “You have concerns and questions. Ask, and I’ll answer. If you keep screaming, you’re only making a fool of yourself.”

The crowd went both ways. split against itself. A gruff man in work boots: “Leave the kid alone.” A worried mother with a headscarf: “My kid listens to his teachers.” A board member angled his face toward the camera, lips pressed in a statesman’s frown. From the back row: “Turn it down, son.” Near the aisle, a girl whispered, “Poor guy,” and blanched when she realized that the boy had registered her pity.

“I’m not asking you anything,” the boy spat at the teacher. He screamed into the microphone again, but now he was unintelligible. The feedback screech returned, splitting the crowd’s ears. He kept trying to scream louder, but he sounded thin and reedy compared to the feedback. His face reddened, his eyes bulged. He looked insane. But he would not stop.

Even the boy’s supporters in the crowd were now begging the AV guy to shut it all down. So he did. The boy just stood on stage with his dead mic, though the live feed was still running soundlessly behind him.

The teacher rose. “Lies cost lives. One of my freshmen bought the lies he heard online and skipped his booster. He’s died a few months later. His sister is still living with long COVID. Adults don’t dive into conspiracy theories just to make ourselves feel smarter than everyone else. We just step up and do everything we can to protect the defenseless and the innocent.”

The boy stayed on stage, blinking. The crowd was not focused on the teachers open hands hanging by his side. The boy starting mumbling something, perhaps a question, but now no one could hear him. So the AV guy turned the mic back on. Just then, the live stream erupted in bigger flames, emojis of money bags, and all-caps texts of OWN HIM followed by dozens of exclamation points. He smiled at the screen.

“Lies!” he screamed again, forcing his pitch even higher than before. The feedback screeched instantly. so it wouldn’t sound like doubt. His fear and bile showed in his contorted face. The AV guy cut the mic again. Someone in the crowd said, “Please.”

On the livestream the boy’s face froze mid-rant, mouth gaping, eyes bulging, cap brim casting a contorted shadow.

There was an instant of silence. Then a sigh, a chuckle, a murmur, and old man saying, “That’s enough, son.”

The boy set the mic down as if it were hot. His boots squeaked across the stage floor. A word cloud of mockery, pity, and irritation trailed him out like smoke.

In the dark lot, shame turned to anger. He whipped out his phone. He clipped the frozen image of his face and laid block letters over it: THEY FEAR THE TRUTH! Below it he pasted a link, then: Support free speech. He posted it even before the echo of humiliation died away.

Later, the teacher saw it on his laptop. He rubbed his eyes, shut the screen, and sat in the dark.

Back in the gym, the AV guy had coiled the microphone. It lay silent in its box.