Deafening

1 : memory

I'll always remember the day when I went completely deaf.

It resurfaces in my memory every now and then, flooding my thoughts and shattering the perfect silence inside of my head. It causes disruption... this memory. Every time I remember it again, I just... I don't know.

Honestly, it's weird, how one event can trigger all of these emotions, like someone smashing their fist into a pile of neatly stacked Dominos. One by one, they collapse into each other and continue the chain...

My vision begins to blur.

I begin to remember parts of that scene... the scene that changed my life forever. Slowly... very slowly, that memory fills itself in – every person forming before my eyes, color returning to their faces and emotions plastering themselves onto their expressions. Then... the silence. The heavenly silence that I'd known for all my life until later that day.

It was like a lullaby – finally hearing it now. Everything was going on normally around me, but I stood there, motionless, in my past self, basking in this soft, quiet silence like it was a warm blanket around my ears. I could barely remember what it felt like to have that peace. That peace and quiet, surrounding me all the time, unless somebody was directly transmitting to my transmitter.

Gradually, a dull, throbbing pain began to form behind my eyes. I shook my head with annoyance. It was that same headache again. The one that I had been having for weeks, months, even years now.

I remember pressing against my temples with both hands for just a second, my left palm pressing against the transmitter fitted on my left earlobe. And then... something weird happened.

At first, it was just something like a background noise – a long buzz, or beep. But the strange thing was, it was only in my left ear – the same one that my hand had pressed against when I was holding my head.

And then, as if a knife was cutting through my ears, the sound erupted. A high-pitched screech... And then all of a sudden, I could hear the people around me, saying things that I couldn't understand. The muffled noises were synced to their lip movements.

It was all gibberish...

I began to feel dizzy. Nothing made sense...

Was this what it felt like... to hear?

Everything was in slow motion. The pain in my ears was unbearable now, as if burning embers had been thrown into my eardrums.

I screamed and thrashed, but my arms and legs were sluggish and heavy.

And then... I blacked out.