Anonymous
The cold wind whistled in the trees and dusted leaves and tiny droplets of rain over the ground like a blanket. In a nearby park, children played, their laughter and screams of joy rang out. Dogs barked, birds chirped, and Annelise sat. She couldn’t hear any of it. Not one bit. Not since meningitis at age five had snatched her sounds from her. The birds chirping, the dogs howling, the children playing, the wind whistling. If she thought really hard, she could remember some sounds. She could remember the noise that Wile E Coyote made when he ran into a cliff. Even the sound that the roadrunner made, speeding away from the coyote. If she thought extra hard, she could even remember the wind sometimes.
Today, she couldn't remember to save her life. The little bit of sound she could hear all blended into one quiet buzzing in the back of her head. She sat, on a bench in the park, like she did most days. She waited for her mother to get done with work and come pick her up. Home was too far to walk from school, but the park was just a stone’s throw away from the school. Annelise called the school “The Insane Asylum”. Annelise did not like school one bit. Too many judging eyes, too many people thinking they could yell at her and she would hear what they were saying, too many teachers who faced the board so she couldn't read their lips, and too little deaf people. She was the only one. In a school of 2,314 students, she was the only one who couldn't hear a lick. Annelise was terribly lonely. Mother was distant, Father was strict, and Brother wasn't spoken of. Annelise wished Mother and Father would speak of Brother. Just like her hearing, she couldn't remember unless she thought really hard. Sometimes she remembered his smiling face, once she even remembered his voice. When she asked Father about it, he yelled at her and sent her out of the house. Annelise didn't try that again. Brother left when Annelise was four. Now, Annelise thought of Brother’s voice and wished she could see him. And oh, how she wished.
But nothing ever came out of that wish. Like the 763 wishes before it, the 764th failed too. Annelise knew it would. Her wishes were her one constant in an insane world. Even if she knew nothing was to come of them. Annelise looked down as a group of boys walked by her bench. She only barely recognised one, but she couldn't pin from where.She got a glimpse of her memory that she had to think about really hard to remember, and realized that the boy who had walked by was Brother. She broke out into a sprint behind the boys, waving her arms and yelling as best as a deaf girl can. The boys turned around, and she quickly counted them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And none of the seven were Brother. It struck Annelise that she might be going home with another black eye tonight. She looked at the boy who she had mistaken for Brother and signed, “Sorry, I thought you were my brother.”
The boy looked at her sympathetically, like he understood, but Annelise knew he didn't. No one near here signed. Another boy butted in. “No one can understand, dork. Want to learn to speak, like everyone else?” The boys started to all circle around her.
Annelise was definitely going home with a black eye tonight.
The boy who had spoken to her threw the first punch that hit her right square in the center of her left eye. That’s where this boy always went first. She didn't even bother to cover it anymore. He kicked her in the shin next, a move she saw coming and tried to dodge a bit. It worked, which made the boy even more angry. “You need anger management classes”, she signed to the boy, but that just made him kick and hit more. Soon, she was cheek down on the pavement, taking the beating from all the boys. With her one not-swollen eye, she counted the boys again. One, two, three, four, five, six… where was number seven?
The boy who looked slightly like Brother started pulling the other boys off of her. After all the boys were off Annelise and their anger was directed towards the boy that looked like Brother, he started yelling at them. He yelled and yelled and yelled. Annelise couldn't catch much of it, his lips were moving too fast. She watched as the boys anger built up towards the boy that looked like Brother.
After the boy was done yelling, he reached his hand down to Annelise, to help her up off the ground. Annelise flinched away, thinking he was going to hit her. After a bit, Annelise turned to look at the boy that looked like Brother. His one, two, three, four, five, six friends had all left, and all that remained in front of her was a boy with an understanding face. She looked at him, at his eyes. He looked compassionate. His hand was still outstretched, as to help her up. She took it, and he helped her back up onto her bench. He ran away quickly. Finally, Annelise though, he had come to his senses and run away from the weird deaf girl. But he came back not even a minute later with wet paper towels and started to dab her cut and bruised arms with it, and gave Annelise one to dab the cuts on her face with. Annelise noticed that his eyes would dart up into hers and then back down at her arm. She tried to match his eyes. At her arm, at him. At her arm, at him. At her arm, at him. Soon, the boy stopped looking at her arm and just blindly dabbed her cuts while looking at her, and then in the distance when she made eye contact with him. The silence.comforted Annelise, like a warm blanket she was swaddled up in for the time being. The buzzing was slowly fading, and it was being replaced by thoughts. As her eyes darted around, reaching his sometimes, she felt at peace. Soon, Annelise felt his eyes lock in to her. He stopped darting. No one had ever stopped darting away from Annelise before, not even Mother and Father. She glanced up and met his gaze as she continued to dab the gash in her face. She kept the gaze, but it was never uncomfortable. The boy put his paper towel down and shifted his body more towards hers. And then something amazing happened.
He signed, “What’s your name?”