Budapest » [Clintasha]

Chapter Thirty-Six: Impairment

TRIGGER WARNING: ABUSE & ALCOHOLISM

Deafness, that was a new facet of difficultly in my life.

Ever wondered what it's like? You know when you go swimming and you stick your head under the water? And every sound is dulled and warped? That's what it's like. It's like constantly swimming in a world of silence, with occasional pinpricks of sounds at selective pitches.

I spent so much of my time wishing that I didn't have to hear the hurtful things my father said, the hurtful things kids in my class said, the sound of my mother being hit over and over and over that I finally got what I wanted.

The moral of the story is: be careful what you wish for; nothing is ever as you dream it up.

I'd never been grateful for being able bodied, I'd never truly considered it a privilege, I just accepted it as the way I experienced life. But now one of my senses is as blunt as a spoon I've come to realise how privileged I was. You don't necessarily think of hearing as one of the important senses. Sight is the one thing you think you can't live without, but you'd be shocked how deafness can turn your life upside down.

I'd never put in the time to lip read more than adequately and American Sign Language was at the time unheard of for me; it wasn't mandatory to learn in school. So suffering in silence with my disability, my educational career went down the potty and my social skills suffered significantly.

My summer was spent in crisis, trying to work out how to live life lacking one of my senses. Everything had changed.

Walking down the street, I could see people's lips moving and hear the burble of chatter, but nothing was distinct - it was just an amalgamation of overlapping noises. Birdsong was something I missed: I watched the loons and coots splash down the canal; but I didn't hear their squalls or the beat of their wings. Cars, I missed the toots of the horns, the screech of their tires and the revving of their engines.

Living life deaf is like watching a movie muted.

Working the butchers became near impossible, I had to watch the customers lips intently, until I unnerved them with my invasive observation. Every other word I had to guess, replaying the motion of their lips in my head and matching the movements with my own. I must've looked insane.

It was strange hearing a distorted version of my own voice, I could only despair to think how my articulation had slipped.

My father wasn't sober enough to notice my transition from a quiet, crying child to a silent, crying child. He was too drunk to notice that I didn't react to his verbal abuse. He was so out of his mind from the liquor that it went unnoticed to him that I didn't flinch at the slamming of doors, shattering of plates or glasses and the sound of fist or boot on another human being.

Deafness meant I didn't know when or where the next hit was coming from, meaning I ended up looking more like a ragdoll than I ever did before.

My ma' was too absorbed in her grief and working the farm to be attentive to me and my new found affliction. Though she tried, she had our family business to support, our medical bills to pay and my dad's expensive drinking habits to cover. But no amount of surgery in that day and age was going to repair my hearing.

So after throwing a tantrum at my one confidante, I returned to her door like a hungry stray. I tapped on the door, the knocking sound muffled by my numb ears, a bouquet of flowers I'd plucked from a street as I'd made the trip to her house displayed in my hands.

Because  I needed someone. I needed Kate.

Eleanor's live-in maid answered the door - Maria, I'd come to know her as - and she gave me a stern once over before her features blossomed into a smile. "... Clint! ... ... Katherine you're after?" She asked, half of her words too fast to be registered by my eyes.