Alone in an overnighter, he helplessly flipped through TV channels of people presenting news, or talking about it, and for the first time perceived that gabability was the skill most treasured.  One had to gab so singularly well as to make knowing much to a depth wholly unnecessary.  Rather, to know much could make one appear officious, a background player, a piece in an orchestra, less delectable to the viewer.  “Let’s be real, what’s there to really know?,” a gabber on one channel happened to ask a presumed knower of scholarly studies.  The knower suggested there was an endless amount to know, but an inability to gab about it shifted the gabber’s focus to the standby gabber on the panel.  It wasn’t long before he discovered he could no longer follow what those two went on talking about, or, as though infected, what he was himself thinking about.  The flicker of fear that then passed through him stood him up to shut off the TV, and didn’t let him turn it on for a few years yet to come.