The Invention of Sound

by Chuck Palahniuk

Her body continued to be the black box of a jetliner that had crashed with no survivors.

Before that day, any rude bus driver could make Mitzi cry. Henceforth, her career would be to make everyone else cry.

Mitzi told herself that collecting screams amounted to a political act. It constituted the ultimate power.

Every evening was a choice between reading a classic book or going out to an industry event. In brief: whether to spend her time with smart dead people or alive idiots.

“A major trait of psychopaths,” she explained, “is that they don’t yawn when people around them yawn. Psychopaths don’t feel empathy. They lack the mirror neurons.”

“Too old. He’s shooting nothing but hot water and birth defects, you know?”