Pitch Black - Part 5
09:11:00
Chapter 4
My family tried their best to comfort me and stay with
me but I need to be alone, I need time to get used to the feeling. I need to
realise that the next time I press play on my speakers might be never. I spend
time just reading and trying to learn sign language. This is my life now. I
haven’t gone to school for three months. I don’t think I can face it. The
endless corridors of noise that I can’t hear. The endless lectures that I can’t
hear. The patronising instructions that, guess what? I can’t hear.
I know I won't be
able to bear people talking at me as though nothing had changed, that or people
mouthing so slowly that I might've been dumb rather than deaf. But I do know
the day will come at some point. And I want to be ready; I want to be able to
walk through the corridors with my head held high, not being treated like an
invalid. Because I’m not.
The next day my
package came. It was a package of books on sign language, all in colour, all
simple, all going to help me on my journey. But this wasn't a journey I could
take on my own. I sat with my family and we learnt it together, whenever we
could. In a month we could sign-chat around the house and understand each
other. That was when I decided I wanted to start school again. I had laboured
over sign language books for months and now I knew enough to talk. I knew
enough to begin interacting with the world again, I was going to school.
Obviously I had to revise and learn a lot of lessons that I had missed (three
months’ worth...) but when my mum contacted the school they agreed to print of
a summary of the term for me. To help me with all my catching up. To help me
along my journey to my new life. Baby steps was my mums favourite sign phrase,
mine too. It made me think that even the
smallest things I did were helping the bigger picture.
I spent as much
time as possible on my school work. Put my head down and went through
everything I had missed so I wasn’t too far behind the rest of my class. I
typed up the most important areas and stuck them into my exercise books so I
could revise them quickly. This process was on repeat until I was as caught up
as I was ever going to be. We alerted the school to my return and I knew it was
time. My baby steps had caught me up with most people’s leaps and bounds, not
quite to the same extent as others but nevertheless still caught up.
“Coming to school tomorrow! You better be
ready for me! :)” was the text message I sent to Sam, his reply kept me smiling through
all my nerves – “there’ll be a marching band and fireworks. So excited for
you!!! :D”
2 comments
Awwww... just stay strong. i enjoyed reading this
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I'm sorry if I confused you but this is just fiction? Thanks for the feedback anyway though! 💗
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