[The Reading] Mama, we all live in silence...
Posted: 03 Aug 2018, 21:53
‘He is just being ignorant’
‘He is deaf…’
‘Yeah, but he has that thing on his head. He just keeps turning it off.’
‘I suppose..’
People talk more when they think you can’t hear them, Akakios had learnt this at a young age. His mother had been the first person to teach him that people thought you were stupid just because you couldn’t hear them. She had liked to remind him of her disappointment at having a ‘retard’ for a son. It was around that same time that he learned to turn off his hearing aid.
Mama, we all go to hell…
Lips became easier to read the more he did it. The insults stung less when he couldn’t hear the venom behind their remarks. He even taught himself how to keep his face blank (thank you Spock). Life was just simpler if he just became the brick wall they thought he was.
Mama, we all go to hell…
For years that was his life. Day after day. Week after week. Insult after insult. Until he was as empty on the inside as he portrayed on the outside. His mother never noticed, even when his father left, she never stopped to ask if her ‘dense as two short planks’ son was alright. No. They just carried on the way they always did, in silence and insults.
‘I can’t deal with him any more Cathryn.’
She had never been able to deal with him.
‘I don’t know why you didn’t just get rid of him when he showed the signs of being…you know…that..’
‘That’ being deaf, because apparently being deaf meant that he was defective and should have been left on a hill like some sort of Spartan baby.
‘Well, they said that stupid implant would fix him.’
It had. He could hear every word she spat at him – he had just learnt not to show it. It didn’t matter to him if she was a cruel and heartless monster, she was his mother, and for some messed up reason he was a loyal son.
Mama, we're all gonna die…
“Mrs Ruth, your son needs an education more suited for his needs..”
This was always going to be the case. The school couldn’t ‘handle’ the troubled student who refused to turn on his hearing aid. None of them knew what to do with him, so they decided that he should be put in the ‘Special classes’ – it didn’t matter that the lessons were too easy, it didn’t even matter that he was wasting away before their very eyes – so long as they didn’t have to try and cope with the emotionless robot.
“Come on, he isn’t that bad. Shove him at the back of the classroom and ignore him.”
But of course, his mother would never live it down with her friends if her son was put in a special school. No, she wasn’t going to let him get out of this so easily. He would be forced to turn on his aid, forced to live in a world of noise that bombarded him and made his head ache. It was written all over her painted up face, she was going to make him conform even if it broke him.
“I really think he should be in a school that can deal with his more…special requirements, maybe one that can teach him sign?”
Yes, because he would clearly need a way of communicating with those that could hear. His thoughts on the matter didn’t matter. The fact that he didn’t -want- to communicate with him didn’t matter, he needed to.
“Then get him lessons. I am not moving his school – I’ll tell the papers you are kicking him out because he is ‘special’.”
He hated that word. He wasn’t special. He was DEAF.
Mama, we're all full of lies…
Being deaf wasn’t a sin. Just because he couldn’t hear didn’t make him stupid, it didn’t make him weak or different. There was nothing wrong with who he was.
“You know I can hear you, yes?”
Twelve years of silence broke.
Four sets of eyes zeroed in on him and he felt the side of his mouth twitch, it was only the one side, and it was barely more than a tug – but it was the first thing he had felt in a awful long time, it made the little light inside his chest pulse.
“What the heck, you have a voice?”
It wasn’t really that stupid of a question, not really. A lot of deaf people never found their voices, they didn’t need them after all – they spoke just as clearly with their hands as everyone else did with their tongue.
“Yes.”
He had struck them dumb. It was almost amusing. Here where four people who believed that he was the broken one because one part of him didn’t work the same way it did for them, and the moment he shows them that he has been ‘normal’ all along, they break.
“What is wrong with it, you sound like you have cotton wool in your mouth.”
Of course it would be his mother who found the ‘wrong’ thing about this development. But, he would not allow her this. He had been silent for too long, he had been living under her pressure for fifteen years, it was time to end this nightmare.
“Nothing is wrong with it.”
Slowly he stood, hands in fists and hazel eyes locked with dirty brown. She would hear him. She would understand that enough was enough. He was going to ruin her pretty picture world.
“Headmaster, put in my transfer papers to one of those specialist schools.”
“Ak…”
“I don’t need her permission. I want to learn.”
It took a minute, but eventually the grey head of the oldest man in the world gave a nod.
“Listen here, I am your moth…”
“No, you listen. I am going to go to that school, I am going to learn how to…live, and you and me will continue to ignore each other.”
He wasn’t going to back down. Not now, not ever. He narrowed his eyes until they were pinpricks, daring her to disagree with his statement.
.
.
.
.
“Alright.”
And there it was – he was free. At last, he was going to learn how to function in a world where nothing made sense and people wanted him in a nice little box.
He gave her a smile, and then he reached up and flicked off his hearing aid.
Silence had never been so peaceful.
‘He is deaf…’
‘Yeah, but he has that thing on his head. He just keeps turning it off.’
‘I suppose..’
People talk more when they think you can’t hear them, Akakios had learnt this at a young age. His mother had been the first person to teach him that people thought you were stupid just because you couldn’t hear them. She had liked to remind him of her disappointment at having a ‘retard’ for a son. It was around that same time that he learned to turn off his hearing aid.
Mama, we all go to hell…
Lips became easier to read the more he did it. The insults stung less when he couldn’t hear the venom behind their remarks. He even taught himself how to keep his face blank (thank you Spock). Life was just simpler if he just became the brick wall they thought he was.
Mama, we all go to hell…
For years that was his life. Day after day. Week after week. Insult after insult. Until he was as empty on the inside as he portrayed on the outside. His mother never noticed, even when his father left, she never stopped to ask if her ‘dense as two short planks’ son was alright. No. They just carried on the way they always did, in silence and insults.
‘I can’t deal with him any more Cathryn.’
She had never been able to deal with him.
‘I don’t know why you didn’t just get rid of him when he showed the signs of being…you know…that..’
‘That’ being deaf, because apparently being deaf meant that he was defective and should have been left on a hill like some sort of Spartan baby.
‘Well, they said that stupid implant would fix him.’
It had. He could hear every word she spat at him – he had just learnt not to show it. It didn’t matter to him if she was a cruel and heartless monster, she was his mother, and for some messed up reason he was a loyal son.
Mama, we're all gonna die…
“Mrs Ruth, your son needs an education more suited for his needs..”
This was always going to be the case. The school couldn’t ‘handle’ the troubled student who refused to turn on his hearing aid. None of them knew what to do with him, so they decided that he should be put in the ‘Special classes’ – it didn’t matter that the lessons were too easy, it didn’t even matter that he was wasting away before their very eyes – so long as they didn’t have to try and cope with the emotionless robot.
“Come on, he isn’t that bad. Shove him at the back of the classroom and ignore him.”
But of course, his mother would never live it down with her friends if her son was put in a special school. No, she wasn’t going to let him get out of this so easily. He would be forced to turn on his aid, forced to live in a world of noise that bombarded him and made his head ache. It was written all over her painted up face, she was going to make him conform even if it broke him.
“I really think he should be in a school that can deal with his more…special requirements, maybe one that can teach him sign?”
Yes, because he would clearly need a way of communicating with those that could hear. His thoughts on the matter didn’t matter. The fact that he didn’t -want- to communicate with him didn’t matter, he needed to.
“Then get him lessons. I am not moving his school – I’ll tell the papers you are kicking him out because he is ‘special’.”
He hated that word. He wasn’t special. He was DEAF.
Mama, we're all full of lies…
Being deaf wasn’t a sin. Just because he couldn’t hear didn’t make him stupid, it didn’t make him weak or different. There was nothing wrong with who he was.
“You know I can hear you, yes?”
Twelve years of silence broke.
Four sets of eyes zeroed in on him and he felt the side of his mouth twitch, it was only the one side, and it was barely more than a tug – but it was the first thing he had felt in a awful long time, it made the little light inside his chest pulse.
“What the heck, you have a voice?”
It wasn’t really that stupid of a question, not really. A lot of deaf people never found their voices, they didn’t need them after all – they spoke just as clearly with their hands as everyone else did with their tongue.
“Yes.”
He had struck them dumb. It was almost amusing. Here where four people who believed that he was the broken one because one part of him didn’t work the same way it did for them, and the moment he shows them that he has been ‘normal’ all along, they break.
“What is wrong with it, you sound like you have cotton wool in your mouth.”
Of course it would be his mother who found the ‘wrong’ thing about this development. But, he would not allow her this. He had been silent for too long, he had been living under her pressure for fifteen years, it was time to end this nightmare.
“Nothing is wrong with it.”
Slowly he stood, hands in fists and hazel eyes locked with dirty brown. She would hear him. She would understand that enough was enough. He was going to ruin her pretty picture world.
“Headmaster, put in my transfer papers to one of those specialist schools.”
“Ak…”
“I don’t need her permission. I want to learn.”
It took a minute, but eventually the grey head of the oldest man in the world gave a nod.
“Listen here, I am your moth…”
“No, you listen. I am going to go to that school, I am going to learn how to…live, and you and me will continue to ignore each other.”
He wasn’t going to back down. Not now, not ever. He narrowed his eyes until they were pinpricks, daring her to disagree with his statement.
.
.
.
.
“Alright.”
And there it was – he was free. At last, he was going to learn how to function in a world where nothing made sense and people wanted him in a nice little box.
He gave her a smile, and then he reached up and flicked off his hearing aid.
Silence had never been so peaceful.