Sound Waves and Sunshine

By Daleen Cowgar

The City Hall walls are made entirely of glass. The sun pierces through, warming my back.

It would be a beautiful day if not for the two security guards pointing tasers at my face.

City Hall’s hustle lurches into slow motion. The second hand on the clock could race a snail… and the snail would win. One guard’s mouth moves like a glacier. I have time to wonder if he’ll finish his sentence.

But then, the second hand clicks, and everything is normal. The crowd moves again. The security guard finishes his sentence.

“Mr. Korhonen.” His lips shape into words for me to read. “You need to leave now.”

He knows I’m Deaf, yet he speaks anyway. He also knows my deafness is why I’m here, why I’ve been here day after day asking to speak to the Council. What he doesn’t know is, I won’t be here tomorrow.

I don’t give any indication that I understand him.

He steps closer. “Mr. Korhonen, you have been warned not to come back. If you do not leave, we will have you removed. You have until the count of five.”

The only thing that moves is my hand. I finger the stitches across my throat to remind myself this isn’t a dream.

“Five,” the guard says, holding up five fingers.

That’s how old my daughter is.

The city brought this upon themselves. The Sue Thomas School for the Deaf was the only Deaf school within a hundred miles. The Council rezoned it, said it would be more profitable as something else. We have a fine special education program, they said. We don’t need two.

Will they have a Deaf teacher? we asked through our interpreter. The one we were forced to pay for, since the Council didn’t hire one for a meeting they knew would be filled with Deaf people. Will they learn sign language? Deaf history? Pride for their culture?

The Council didn’t hesitate. Our teachers are the best in the county. While your children are encouraged to learn sign at home, we will teach them English in class.

“Four.” One finger drops.

I went to a hearing school. The teacher did not sign and was suspicious when my friend and I signed, often punishing us for it. Learning to speak without hearing the sounds escaping your throat is nearly impossible. I speak, but with a Deaf accent. People don’t hesitate to point it out.

The school told my hearing parents I would be successful in the “real world” because of the education I received, but McCarty Military Lab laid me off two weeks ago. They found someone who better understood the project, they said. It sounded like, we found someone who isn’t Deaf.

I haven’t told my wife yet. She thinks I’m on a business trip. When I hugged her goodbye for too long, she laughed. You’re going to see me again. This isn’t the end of the world.

I only hugged her tighter. One never knows when the end of the world will arrive, I said.

“Three.” His three looks like a ‘w,’ like all hearing threes do. If my daughter goes to a hearing school, her threes will look like that, too.

McCarty Lab was experimenting with weaponry that could be implanted into a soldier’s body. I toyed with the idea of sound. What if the voice could be a weapon, a sonic burst that could rupture eardrums, destroy or weaken buildings, completely stun their opponent?

The problem: our soldiers were battered by the sound. Even though they weren’t in the sound wave’s path, their own thundering voice was beyond their tolerance.

They needed someone deaf. Someone like me.

When the lab fired me, I stole the weapon and had it implanted. My whole life, people have disliked my slurred letters, my Deaf accent, my uncontrolled volume.

It’s only appropriate, then, that my voice should be my weapon.

“Two.”

You have this one chance to leave, I sign. They probably don’t know ASL, but then again, they don’t think I know how to read lips. I suppose it’s only fair that I give them the same chance they gave me.

“One.” The guard’s eyes narrow. “On your knees.”

“No!”

I mean to say it normally, but I am furious. It comes out as a roar.

I can’t hear the sound escaping my lips, but I see the sound wave. Glass shatters above me and cascades like a waterfall, sparkling in the sun. The guards crumple, the strength of my voice forcing them down. The tasers lie abandoned on the floor. Hands cover their ears. Blood streams between their fingers.

I know what their diagnosis will be: Ruptured eardrum, late-deafened, caused by excessive sound. Cure: none.

They are now as deaf as I am.

Movement beyond them grabs my attention. A mother curls around her child, the sun glinting off shattered glass across her back. An employee peeks wide-eyed over a desk. An older man, blood also trickling out of his ears, attempts to stand, though he only makes it to his knees. When he notices my gaze, he raises his hands in the air, lips muttering a phrase I can’t see well enough to understand.

I am the cause of it all.

The shattered glass becomes a field of red and blue as cop cars skid to a stop just outside. They’ll be rushing in soon to arrest me.

My daughter’s excitement about starting at the Deaf school next year is the only thing that forces me up the steps, though I want to rush back to our house to see her one last time. I know the Mayor is currently meeting with the Council, and they will re-open the school, no matter the cost.

If this city will not heed our signs, they will hear my voice. If they cannot be bothered to hear us, then neither will I hear their pleas for mercy. Instead, I will think of my daughter, and speak.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daleen Cowgar is a copywriter with an itch for telling stories with strong women, wolves, and the occasional spaceship or dragon. When she’s not writing, she’s probably buried in a book, riding her cow horse, or backpacking through the mountains. You can find her on Instagram where she makes graphics on Canva and otherwise procrastinates on writing

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