the figurant made flesh: audible, present, unseen — "Poor Tony didn’t know that his…" · S2
Poor Tony didn’t know that his silent whimpers had ceased to be silent, was why everyone in the car had gotten so terribly interested in the floor-tiles between their feet.
Context
The figurant condition rendered from the inside: a man whose only true broadcast is the involuntary one, and whose one involuntary broadcast is received as a reason to look away. His deliberate scream is soundless, sealed inside; the whimper he doesn't know he's making is the only signal that reaches the car, and it lands as a cue for a carful of respectables to study the floor. Presence, sound, and total non-reception occupy the same body at once — he is loudest exactly where no one will meet his eye.