Hear no evil

“It’s going to take a little getting used to.”

She smiled as she said it. A little variation in the turn of her lips that I would have never perceived as being something separate from the act until a few weeks ago. Now I know different. Now I know there are things concealed within the sounds of people’s voices that I never needed to worry about previously.

“Why don’t we try again? From the start?”

I look down at the printed page she’s lain out for me. A poem. One of Blake’s lesser known pieces. I hadn’t let her know that I was familiar with it already and the slight puckering at each corner of her eyes reveal she thinks the words are beyond me. Being aware of that thought forming behind her face irks me like never before. Because now, for the first in my life, I can hear the tinny lie of falsehood that runs through her speech, like the thinnest smear of gold through the blackest seam of shale.

“You can skip any passages that are too difficult if you like. There’s no rush.”

That wasn’t true either. Her gaze divides itself between the page in front of me and the clock behind. She was hoping to get away early. My slowness is frustrating her. I can hear the anger in her voice as loud as the clashing waves on a pebbled beach. Yet her smile never falters.

--

I’d always worn earphones at work, as a kind of visual cue to colleagues, a concrete reminder of my deafness. Otherwise it was a disability that people tended to grow immune to, and ultimately forget was there. Even with the implants in place I didn’t change my habits, and eventually people forgot that I was no longer deaf, just as easily as they’d forgotten I once was.

“I just don’t feel like he’s there for me, emotionally. You know what I mean?”

“Absolutely. I don’t know why you bother with him. You could do so much better.”

My ears tingle, physically tingle, so much so that I check the wiring and the battery compartment throughout my shift. Tapping and flinching as I persistently confirm the mechanism is working.

--

At home too I catch the whispers and furtive glances where before I had only seen what was presented to me as requiring my attention. Now, so much occurs on the periphery. And so many words float through my awareness, concerning me, but not directed at me.

--

“I don’t trust her. Sometimes she looks up likes she’s aware of something, and other times she just stares right through you.”

“I know what you mean. She never says anything.”

“Can she?”

“Can she what?”

“Can she say anything?”

--

“You know I love you right?” His hand on my breast, just short of cupping the swell of softening flesh from my ribs. Close enough so that we both know where it is, and where it’s heading.

“There’s no other girl like you. There’s no one else but you.”

The implant sings with the melody of lies.

--

“You don’t seem to be concentrating as well today. Do you really need to have the headphones in place? You know you don’t need them now. You don’t need to put up that barrier between yourself and other people any more. The whole point of the cochlea implant is its ability to finally strip away that distance deaf people always feel exists between them and the hearing world.”

I watch her smile dissolve into uncomplicated concern as I turn down the implant and crank up the music. Soon all I’m left with is the comforting, resonating woosh of myself. And for the first time in weeks I can finally relax and see what’s going on.