What the hell are you listening to? There is disdain in the voice, laughing preemptively at some assumed forthcoming joke. But there is no humor in me or my ears or my listening brain. There is only shame over my apparently bad taste in music. I turn it off and wait for the spewer of scorn to go away before I plug-in uncomfortable ear buds and strain to recover previous pleasure. But it is no use. The joy in the music is gone, replaced with the sick sensation of contempt. At myself? At the creator of such drivel? Both, I think. The innocence of a moment ago has aged and withered. Hunch-backed and bitter, it wanders off to join the other deathly figments of a lost age. My childish joys, gnarled and rotted from neglect and abuse, absorb their new companion. Their gain is my loss.
Mind of a Mouse 