"Do you ever feel numb, Raven?"

I'm staring out the window of the front passenger side of the T-Car.

Small, quaint shop buildings and hedged edges of the City Park drift by in an early evening grayness.

"Mmm….Numb, Cyborg?"

He drives leisurely, his lands lightly hanging onto the wheel.

"Yeah….Numb….Like, with each passing day."

"…………….sounds like entropy to me."

"Heh…..I'm not doing technobabble. At least not now."

I slowly….delicately sigh. I rub my pale brow and lean further towards the window. Staring….

"What do you mean by numb, Cyborg?"

"When I was a kid….," he gestures with one hand while carefully coasting us through an intersection. "….the days seemed so long. Going to bed early was a torture…for the darkness of night just….promised so much mystery and intrigue. But these days—us being Titans and working around the clock and all—it just boggles my mind how short 'twenty-four hours' really is. Sometimes I feel like there's no time for time. The hours….the sunlight…the moonlight……….it's all like a watered-down soup sloshing back and forth in a hollowed out hourglass missing of its sand."

"Cyborg. We all grow old and grow familiar with things," I murmur and half-face him. "Whether it's attachment to routine or detachment from old norms….it's all really the same. We adapt."

"We 'decay' is more like it…," Cyborg murmurs.

I shrug and look out the window again. "Well….no reason to be gloomy about it……"

A snickering.

I turn back and glare at him. "…..what?"

He's smirking somewhat. "I'd imagine you would be the one to choose gloom."

"…………..I never chose gloom in my life, Cyborg."

"……….never once……never would I ever……"

I take a long, deep breath and stare out the window. I murmur. "I don't feel like talking right now."

He answers me with silence.

The car rides on through the grayness.

I try to relax, but I can't help but count the seconds…..Count the seconds till Cyborg opens his mouth again. I know that I truly can't quiet him. He speaks whatever he wants….whenever he wants. Unlike Beast Boy, a good deal of what Cyborg has to ramble on about is decent and—sometimes—thought provoking.

All right……more than sometimes……

But it doesn't change the fact that I don't want to talk right now. In fact, I'm not entirely sure of what I want to do this second. I'm mesmerized by the passing blur of the gray world. It is something I can sleep to.

And I have been sleeping to an awful lot of things these days.

I really don't want to talk right now…but already I can empathically sense the emotions in Cyborg's body starting to rise…..and how it's about to erupt through his throat and out of his mouth. Something to comfort me, perhaps. Because I know he feels like he's opened a wound that isn't really there in me, though for all reasons and respects—it should be.

I want to spare him that anxiety. Cyborg doesn't deserve to feel so…..

I open my mouth before him: "Feeling 'numb' can mean anything, Cyborg. It could mean that you're presently bored or stressed over a particular issue in life. And—kind of like a mid-life crisis—you seek a way out of that debacle. And so you….you overanalyze the feelings you have and the level at which you notice your life progressing towards the inevitable mortal leap. And you start to have fears in having less time to do things and less energy to feel them with, and thus it starts to vex you and—like a true ailment—leaves you physically and psychosomatically affected. Thus, a psychobiological sense of 'numbness' best associated with a growing apathy in life that—regardless of your content or despairing condition upon death—will leave you no longer fearing the permanent veil of nonexistence when your life comes to an end—"

Cyborg is snickering.

"……..," I squint at him. "What's so funny….?"

He clears his throat, smiles crookedly, and glances aside at me. "Raven…..two thirds of my nervous system was obliterated in my accident. And ever since then, it's been degrading at a pace of exponential decrease. THAT…..is how I am 'numb'…..you dig?"

"Snkkkt-Hahahaha….your poor thing. I don't think we were on the same page here!"

"……………………," I fold my arms and stare out the window. "Whatever."

"Heheheheh……oh, come on, Raven. You can't be that serious all the time!"

"………..right, Raven?"

"The next time I say I'm not in the mood for talking……let's not talk….."

"Heh….," he winks at me. "Tell that to yourself."

I bitterly drip forth without looking at him: "I am."

"……Oh…….uhm…….."

"……………………….."

Cyborg quietly drops the quiet car through the quiet evening….

We reach home, and I go straight to my room.

I don't talk to Cyborg again tonight.

I don't talk to anyone at all….