[ WP ] In a world where almost everyone is an unfeeling psychopath , those who can show emotion are shunned -- being able to display or feel emotion is considered a mental illness .

When I meet him for the first time, he is wearing robes that slough from his shoulders and expose the collar of his neck. It is an immodest kaftan that dances across the flat plane of his chest and almost down to his navel. A pale hood climbs his head to cover a sprout of chestnut curls, and he shows flawless teeth. He shoots the man that is kneeling beside him and bound with duct tape, and the patient makes a tremendous hullabaloo. She shrieks and rakes the folds of flesh that have collected beneath her eye sockets, until all her breath scrapes into a thin moan -- a guttural whine that collapses into racking convulsions, like she is possessed. I blink and ignore the germ. 
 
 `` As you can see, the affliction digs deeps,'' he announces, and tilts his weapon away from the corpse of the bound man and jogs the barrel skyward. This idea is followed by an explosion of applause as students and professors jump to their feet in ovation. 
 
 Each of the enthusiastic audience members seek some special attention, rattling the sound from their hands and watching him for recognition. There is none, and they collapse unaffected into their seats. 
 
 `` Now, who among you did not feel that man die?'' There is in uncomfortable silence and the reptilian shifting of heads, as everyone wonders who will test the trap in the question. 
 
 `` It's alright,'' assures the man in Egyptian cloth, and shows his teeth. `` What I mean is, who did not receive a dollop of adrenaline from the crack of the bullet? Who does not smell the smoke or see the blood? Who can not hear the symptoms of his mother?'' This time there is no stir in the audience. `` Alright, who can tell me why she,'' and even he struggles to find the word, `` reacts?'' 
 
 A precocious young student lifts her hand and he points to her, `` when threatened, the sympathetic nervous system shuts down unnecessary functions, increases blood flow to necessary muscles, increases airflow via the expansion of the glottis, which triggers a parasympathetic readjustment of recuperative processes. These recuperative processes include swallowing over the expanded glottis, a phenomenon the afflicted have described as a lump in the throat, and the secretion of tear film from the lacrimal gland.'' 
 
 `` Straight from the source text,'' confirms the man on the stage, and the student shows her teeth and the two of them momentarily weigh the possibility of coitus, while the rest of the audience waits for him to continue. `` A response that is roughly analogous to the inducement of pain -- after all, who here would not wince at my gunshot, had it been multiplied a hundred times? And doing so, who would not make tears from the pain?'' The audience is taut in its attentive silence. 
 
 `` This comparison is at the heart of effective treatment for Emotional Personality Disorder. To understand and cure the afflicted, one can not think of them as the violent, or the mentally or physically handy capped specimens they become, when the symptoms of EPD present themselves.'' I remember my daughter. She has learned to ride a two-wheeler, and the horrible germ wells up, as she wobbles down the driveway. 
 
 `` The afflicted are not monsters, but are exactly what we know them to be, afflicted with a terrible and fickle disease.'' The woman has crawled to the leaking corpse of her son, and she lies across his body. 
 
 `` Now imagine,'' continues the speaker, illuminated by stage lights, `` that every scent and taste were magnified a hundred times, that every clap were a gunshot,'' and he stops to point at the raised barrel of his pistol, `` and every gunshot a bomb blast. This,'' he announces with finality, `` is how the afflicted experience, no,'' he corrects, `` endure existence. Mrs. Espinoza, here, volunteered to undergo treatment and has aided us in our understanding of her rare condition.'' She cranes her head up at him, a mask of mucous and inflamed tissue, and she shows her teeth. `` And this is what that process looks like. It is a scouring of the taste buds, the inducement of anosmia, the administration of blinding light and the measured deafening of a perfect ear.'' 
 
 She turns from the man to the assembled students and faculty, her gums still pulled back to expose her teeth. Tears river the cracks of her face. 
 
 There is another explosion of applause, a crescendo of agreement and affirmation. And the crowd rises, again, as he nods. `` Thank you,'' he says. `` Thank you,'' and watches the precocious student who had the correct answer, who watches him back. 
 
 After the audience has filed out and she has given him the number of her dorm room, I approach him. He discusses the gunshot with the lighting technician. Mrs. Espinoza clings to his shoulder and shows her teeth. I clear my throat and fight the germ, and he looks at me. 
 
 `` I think it,'' I begin, and the germ fires a warning to my sympathetic nervous system. I stop, and he searches my face. `` I think,'' I start, again, as my heart rate jumps, `` I may need your help.'' 
 
 `` Oh?'' He cocks his head, incapable of surprise. 
 
 `` I think I may need some,'' and the germ expands the glottis, making my neck soar and my jaw tight, `` treatment.'' 
 
 In an instant his expression alters, and in perfect imitation of the genuinely sympathetic he raises a hand to support my shoulder. `` Mr?'' he chimes in synthetic concern. 
 
 `` Larson,'' I manage, and the lump expands, to make speaking a nearly impossible chore. 
 
 `` Mr. Larson, is there someone,'' he falters and seems tactfully befuddled, `` that is to say, somewhere, you think your treatment should begin?'' Mrs. Espinoza looks passed me, showing her teeth. 
 
 The germ takes hold of my Lacrimal gland and tear film wells into the edges of my vision. `` My daughter.''
