Silence

The moment I opened my eyes, I knew that something was amiss. I could neither hear the sound of birds chirping nor the sound of distant traffic. My immediate thought was that I had gone deaf. As I got off the bed, I felt a little groggy and knocked my head against the closet. But there was no sound! I did it again and the absence of sound confirmed my worst fear --- I had lost my sense of hearing!

With tears in my eyes, I grabbed my mobile phone to break the tragic news to my poor mother. All those years of blasting my eardrums with loud rock music have finally caught up with me. I was now officially a handicapped person. The thought of going to a special school sent a terrible shiver through me. Then it dawned on me that calling my mother was pointless. I would not be able to hear anything! The realisation fell upon me like a sledgehammer and I started sobbing uncontrollably.

After crying for a few minutes, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I had hoped that it was just a cruel nightmare, but still, I couldn’t hear anything. It was useless to cry anymore so I decided to get dressed and pay my mother a visit at her workplace. When I opened the door, I was shocked to see a large number of my neighbours outside my house.

The strangest thing was how they were desperately moving their arms excitedly, pointing at each other and gesticulating wildly to make a point. My first thought was that they were arguing but when I saw some of them scribbling in a notepad and then showing it to the others, I knew that they couldn’t hear each other too.

Oddly enough, I felt slightly better. I suppose seeing how I was not alone in my misfortune made it more bearable. I calmly made my way over to the crowd and opened my mouth to speak. I was not sure if any sounds were made, but I definitely heard nothing. Mrs Lim and the others looked at me with mouth agape and eyes wide open. I gently took the notepad and marker pen from Mr Kupusamy’s hands and wrote:

“CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

Mrs Lim quickly scribbled something onto her exercise book and showed it to me.

“NO. YOU?”

I wrote my reply and showed it to her.

“NO. WHAT HAPPENED?”

She wrote something and showed it to me.

“DUNNO. WE ALL DEAF.”

Just then, I noticed a car from the corner of my eye. It was my mother. I wondered if she tried honking because our gate was blocked by several of our neighbours. I pointed at my mother’s car and they quickly moved away.

To cut a long story short, everyone in the world had gone completely deaf because of some strange and inexplicable reason. Scientists and experts have theorised that it could have been caused by the oversaturation of electromagnetic radiation in our atmosphere. Apparently the levels of electromagnetic radiation has become dangerously high in recent years due to mobile phone usage and the increasing number of base stations being built all over the world. Perhaps someday we will find out the truth.

All I can say is that living in a soundless world takes some getting used to. For me, the worst part is not being able to listen to any music. The world is slowly adapting to this drastic change. The colours of everything man-made seem to get brighter and more vibrant every day. Teachers no longer have to scold their students for making noise in class. And in return, students no longer have to worry about being scolded for talking in class. We no longer have to endure the annoying noise of loud motorcycles and modified cars. I cannot say for certain if the world has become a better place, but one thing I know for sure is that, the day we lost our sense of hearing, our ability to speak was made redundant too.