Falling On Deaf Ears

• Madeleine Woollard, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2013

The world passes my by in silence, they’ve all forgotten about me, those selfish faces in the crowd.
I look at his face, livid with anger, but his voice falls of silent ears. Never have I heard the call of another’s voice, and I never will. If there is one thing that I learnt a long time ago, it is that I will never be like everyone else. No one knows how to sign and I can’t lip read yet, so my communication levels were at that of a baby, just learning to talk.
In truth I am fourteen years old and as of the beginning of my school life have never had a single friend, well none that truly understood anyway. By now you’re probably thinking who is this dreadfully morbid teenager, and there is a simple answer to that, I am nobody. To me names are not important, they’re just faces to me
At the moment my father if I can even call him that is yelling at me for being useless and a waste of space, at least that’s what I think he’s yelling about. Either that or he just likes doing an impression of a tomato, with a lot of mouth flapping just to be disgusting.
My mum once wrote to me on my little jotter pad, that my father didn’t mean anything by it when he yelled, he just needed to let off steam and as I couldn’t hear I was the best choice. Well thanks mum for giving me that smashing piece of advice and then running off and leaving me with this cherry red lunatic.
Yes I happen to be the most sarcastic person that I know. But that is my life as of four years ago. Yes, yes pity me all you like, somewhere else.
I had one friend you see, a long time ago, his name was Jack and he couldn’t speak. Quite a pair we made the mute and the deaf one, written off by society but happy in our own little bubble. But then someone had to go and pop that little bubble of paradise, and take Jack away. No he’s not dead, just on the other side of the world and way out of my reach. I didn't even get to say goodbye
Well such is life, at least my life anyway.
At this present moment I am sitting on the front lawn looking at clouds as they drift past and wondering what it would be like to fly. You know normal philosophical stuff. And I’m just starting to drift off when someone – who shall soon lose their hand – tapped me on the shoulder. I peeped open my eyes and sat up to see a grinning boy above me, he looked roughly the same age and in his hand he held a jotter pad, with a messy yet familiar scrawl over it.
'Hello Daniel'
My eyes immediately shot up to his face.
Jack?