A Year of Short Stories

The Silence of Words

Prompt- Write a story where the main character doesn't have one of their five senses.

Kalli walked up the stairs. She reached into her pocket and fished out her keys. Koji walked beside her, his leash slack. Pulling out her keys, Kalli selected the proper key and inserted it into the lock. Koji came alive and nudged at her hand. Kalli glanced down at him before looking back down the hallway they'd just come from.

Jen waved and hurried down the hallway. Her mouth started moving. Kalli instantly watched, not wanting to miss anything she said.

"Li! How're you doing today?" Jen tended to talk too fast. Regardless, she was still one of Kalli's best friends.

"I'm alright. Just got done with our morning walk. How are you?"

"Good! Headen out for run!"

Kalli pieced the words together and nodded with a smile. "Sounds like fun. The weather is a bit cold. Might want a jacket!"

Jen laughed and nodded. "Good! I like it cold!"

The two shared a laugh. Kalli opened her door and let Koji inside. Jen and Kalli waved goodbye, and Kalli shut the door behind her. She slid the deadbolt and dropped her keys in their proper bowl. She sighed and sat down on the couch. Koji hopped up and dropped his head in her lap. Kalli smiled and pet between his ears.

"You're such a good boy, Koji."

She felt his breathing increase and the vibrations of his tail hitting the couch. It brought a smile to her face. Just being near him made her happy. He was more than just her service dog; Koji was her best friend. Her thoughts turned to her high school days. She hadn't really had many friends back then.

During freshman and sophomore year is when it all started. Sudden sensorineural hearing loss, or SSHL, is the diagnosis the doctors had given her. She'd just been coming off a sickness and sinus infection, so Kalli and her parent's weren't too surprised when she lost part of her hearing. It was common for some sinus infections to be hard of hearing after all. However, when her hearing kept disappearing, that's when they knew something was truly wrong. The doctors said that she was one of the few unlucky people. Only one in 5,000 people were unlucky enough to deal with SSHL, but, even then, half of those people recovered most if not all of their hearing. Kalli never did.

She still remembered the pop. It had been hard to hear for the last few days, but she could still understand people if they spoke slowly and loudly. She'd been watching TV with the subtitles on. Then her ears popped. Immediately, the world around her fell silent and refused to let her back in. Kalli had undergone numerous different treatments and therapies. She could at least read lips now, but sign language was still foreign to her. It was like a whole other language.

Koji picked up his head and nudged Kalli. It snapped her out of her reverie. He nudged her again and pointedly looked at her phone. Kalli picked it up. A text from her mother had come in. Finally.

She read it and felt the tears coming before she could stop them. She was approved for a cochlear implant. Finally. Finally, she'd be able to hear again!