The not-speaking motif: JOI's two-year delusion that Hal wasn't speaking; strangers recoil at Hal's expression

texture · 20 Nov YDAU

• When: 20 Nov YDAU (recalled/present)
• What: The fullest statement of the novel-frame communication motif. Hal recalls that for two years before his death Himself suffered "this delusion of silence when I spoke: I believed I was speaking and he believed I was not speaking," and that Mario averred Himself never so accused him. In the present, strangers now read something disturbing in Hal's face he can't perceive: the Shell-station cashier the night before recoiled "as if she too had seen something in my expression I hadn't known was there" (cf. Kenkle's "mirth" reading, event 108). The Moms is approachable on all subjects except Himself and his withdrawal. Reinforces the JOI-couldn't-hear-Hal thread (also events 10, 107) and Hal's affect being misread from outside.