Daily story, January 29, 2025

He learned Braille, just out of curiosity, and discovered the whole thing was a ruse: all those signs and labels were just notes about his personal failings. He looked up the inscrutable symbols on his laundry tags: each represented a different complaint about his character. He studied French and Greek and Mandarin. Everyone was talking about the irritating way he inserted himself into conversations. He went out and listened to the birds. He already knew what they were saying.