[right][h2][s]J̶͙̝̹͖͒̅̂̏͝͝ā̶̪̘̾̇̎̕y̷̗̦̖͊̀̑ͅ's̵̤̪̰̓͝[/s] [color=8882be]S̲͍̏̂͜͡i͑̏҉r͎̲͞p̰͔̅̏ȃ̷͍҉̥͒'̶̝̰͍́ͅs͖҉̲[/color] C̸̭͓̤͓̘̱̑̀̾͝͠ą̸̟͈̯͖͐̉͛̾̕͠t̴̩̺͆̂̓͐̕ḣ̵͉͍̣ȧ̷̫̙̞̐͘r̴̛̛͉̟̓̌̿͛s̴̛̮̞̫̝͉͆̈̀ị̸̗͓͍́͑ș̴̛͊̐̋͝t̸̞͗͐[/h2]
[@silver21][/right]

[color=808080][color=8882be][i]I think I'm good at listening...[/i][/color]

A crack opens in the air, not in the floor or the walls but in the space itself, spreading slowly.

[color=8882be][i]...and I thought maybe Jay would want to get their whole story out first.[/i][/color]

The world shatters. Where the coffeeshop was, there is now a plain dark gray room with yellow and white accents, folding chairs in a loose circle: Jay's Catharsis.

Where the creature was sits a woman in large glasses and a pastel yellow sundress, a white cardigan over her shoulders. Brown hair held back by a simple hairband, curling at the edges where it escaped. A clipboard on her crossed knee.

[i]"You remember Wesley. His Catharsis took the shape of a party. Jay's is an online group therapy session."[/i]

Above Jay, clinging to the air just over their shoulders, is a shadow. Dark, indistinct, moving the way the shapes in the fog outside the coffeeshop moved. Crying in despair. Tears run down a face with no features, and the grief transfers directly to Sirpa, a deep sadness of feeling unheard.

The faces come from everywhere and nowhere, some of them familiar, most not. A woman is trying to explain what the doctor told her, and her friend begins talking about her own appointment, which is louder and also, it becomes clear, an entirely different subject, and then someone else joins in who seems to be recounting something from a podcast, and after a while the woman simply closes her mouth, because what would be the point. In a kitchen, a boy tells his father that he is afraid, and his father smiles in a way that is not unkind and says that everyone gets like that sometimes, and reaches for the remote. Elsewhere, a man tries to describe a difficult year, all of it, from the beginning, and the person across from him seizes on the one week in August when things were briefly all right, turning it over with enthusiasm, as though the other months had not been mentioned. And in a room that might once have been a living room, a girl is speaking steadily and carefully to someone who is reading a magazine, and she goes on speaking, adjusting her tone once or twice as though a different register might help, but the page keeps on turning.

The whispers of the dejected start to collect:

[right][i]You say you're listening, but you're not.[/i][/right]
[sup][i]Maybe I'm not saying it right.[/i][/sup]
[right][sub][i]...But that's not what I said.[/i][/sub][/right]
[center][i]You haven't heard a single thing I said.[/i][/center]
[i]I'm so tired of repeating myself.[/i]
[right][sup][i]It's like talking to a wall.[/i][/sup][/right]

Remote in hand, the Moderator presses pause, and the voices and visions stop together. She presses rewind. The images come apart, the shadow above Jay coming apart with them, until all that remains are two figures: Jay and the Moderator from a few minutes earlier. Somewhere in the middle of trying to get the whole thing out at once, Jay simply stopped. Mid-sentence. Not a choice, not a hesitation. The mechanism that turns thought into speech was no longer there. Shortly after, one of the group said they had no interest in sitting here watching someone work through their depression, and left. Jay apologized for driving them off. Then asked how many people were even still in the room. When the Moderator asked what they needed, the answer was simple enough: not an audience. A conversation that went both ways.

[color=8882be][i]I think I'm good at listening... and I thought maybe Jay would want to get their whole story out first.[/i][/color]

Overhead, the shadow reappears. [i]"If you were actually listening, would your response to Jay's request to converse... be silence?"[/i]

The Moderator presses eject and the shadow vanishes.

[i]"Waiting to hear someone out is a kindness. But I think what Jay was asking for was not to be heard to the end. They are asking to be met in the middle. Right now, silence will hurt them more."[/i] She meets Sirpa's eyes. [i]"If you are not sure what to say, ask a question. Let them know someone is in the room. Help them finish their story. That is enough."[/i][/color]

[center][color=808080]━━━━━━ ◈ ━━━━━━[/color][/center]

[hider=What is Perceived][color=808080]
[list][*] Events here can only be perceived by Sirpa.[/list]
[/color][/hider]