If there's one thing I hate the most in the world, it's a broken record on replay. At first it's so good, you wish you can listen to it forever. But after a few hours, you become bored. In a few days, you get irritated. After a few weeks, you get pissed off. Then, in a few months, you go crazy.
Imagine what it's like for me, having to listen to the broken record more than half of my life. Unbelievable, right? It's like listening to my baby brother cry for hours and hours on end. The only difference is, my brother takes a breath every once in a while. This shit doesn't. It doesn't even change tracks. Once you think it's done, it restarts again. It's just one song, over, and over, and over again.
I told my family about this, how I could hear things that weren't the everyday sounds. Apparently, I could hear ... something ... that no one else can. My parents think I am crazy. So does my older brother.
"How is that possible, listening to a song for hours, especially for you?" they had asked. "Wake up, Mel. You're deaf!"
I don't need them telling me that. I don't them reminding me every single day. I'd known it for a long time. More than half my life, if I'm right.
But that broken record on replay hadn't always been broken for me. And I wasn't always deaf. It was during seventh grade when we learned of my condition. My music teacher, Ms. Zelda, saw my class for the first time in fifth grade and after assessing our talents, she assigned me a violin. It had the most heavenly sound I'd ever heard. I could play it all day and never get tired of it.
I was really good at it. And I was proud of that. She placed me at second desk, inner chair. Three other people and I were so good, so in harmony, we were called the Quartet. And with some violas, cellos and bass, we became a mini Ensemble. We even placed a piece separate from the actual Orchestra. We were that good.
But then one day, after two years, it all just suddenly ... went away. The sound, the passion, the love; everything that my violin gave me, was gone. It all slipped from my fingers. I don't know how it happened, no one does, but I lost it in a blink of an eye.
My friends swore they'd keep playing, and they did, but I never heard them. I never went to watch them play. I was too ashamed to. I was supposed to be up there with them, but I couldn't play because everyone said I couldn't hear.
But I could see.
No one knows this, but I have developed some unique talents from my loss. I can now see and feel music. It's odd really, how music comes to me. I can feel the vibrations everywhere. Others can do that too, but I can do it better than ordinary people. I'd like to try to learn how to understand words from that, but my ability is still in its early stages.
I can also see the notes being melded into a unique tune, placed upon a staff, and I could "hear" them, in my mind. They sound like a beautiful record being played, but never on replay, no. They keep on playing different songs, new melodies, unique tunes - these gifts are gifts only I understand.
I tried telling people - my parents, for instance, and Ms. Zelda - but of course, no one believed me. I'm deaf. What would a deaf girl know about the sounds and melodies of today? So, according to them, I'm crazy. I'm stupid. I'm dumb.
I'm no one.
That's when that beautiful record broke. It lost its uniqueness, its pizzazz, its spark. It became a dull, scratched up, beaten, old record on replay, playing what once was, never moving forward, never changing.
It is the song of my life.
