I Have Only Ears

"You have five senses, Opal," the man says. He looks kind, but he's about to ruin my life forever. My perfect life.

My happy life.

"I know I do," I say. I wiggle in the hard chair, and Mom shoots me an annoyed glance. She doesn't like the sound of the chair wiggling. She says it hurts her ears, even though I do it quietly. There's hardly a sound that doesn't hurt Mom's ears.

The man sighs. I know his name is Dr. Browning, but I hate the color brown so instead I just call him The Man. Mom doesn't know who I talk about when I refer to him, because she doesn't know which Man I am talking about. And when I do tell her, she yells at me for disrespecting his name. She's yelled at me for it five times already.

"Opal, you can only keep one of them," he tries to explain. He's told me this hundreds of times already. Okay, fine, maybe not hundreds, but definitely more than ten. And I know what he's talking about.

He wants to take me away. Not all of me, but most of me. He says I can keep one of my senses--Mom told me that I have five of them. Sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. The Man says I can only keep one. This is the part that I don't know.

"But why?" I ask. I feel very confused. Not just a little confused, but the kind of confused that makes you want to kick and scream just because you don't understand something. I have a stomach ache, too, which is also from the confusion. I hate it when people don't explain things right.

"It's too dangerous," The Man replies. As if that helps.

"Why?" I ask again. I feel angry now. "Why is it too dangerous? Why are you taking me away?"

Mom puts a hand on my back, but I shrug it off. I won't let Mom touch me until she tells me what's going on. "We're not taking you away, Opal," she says softly. "We're just... limiting your abilities."

"Huh?"

"Opal." The Man's voice is sterner now, and I shrink back in the hard chair. I really want to get off; the nurses and doctors have made me sit in it all day, taking blood and giving blood and sticking needles in my arms. "We need you to choose a sense you get to keep. That's it. Choose now, or we'll choose for you."

I sigh and slump back. Maybe they are lying. Maybe they won't take any of my senses away. But Mom and The Man are looking at me with the kind of face grownups get before they get really mad, so I quickly make my decision.

"I'll keep my hearing," I say. They look surprised.

"Are you sure?" Mom asks. I nod.

"All right," The Man says. He sounds relieved that I've finally picked one. "Let's get to work. Get inside the bed, Opal."

They don't know why I chose hearing. I chose it because then I'll be able to hear myself. And I'm going to be loud.

I'm going to be loud so Mom can hear me. She took everything from me--so I'm going to hurt her ears.

***

Five years later...

I have no eyes

No nose, no mouth

These hands cannot touch

I can't even walk around my own house

All that's left are my ears

Which can only catch the insults from my peers

If I could see, there would only be black

Black from my heart, there's no truer fact

If I could smell I'd smell the blood

If there was a mouth I'd only scream

And if I could touch, they'd only bring an endless red flood

Help me

"Help me," I say.

"Got it. Is that the end?" Dolly says. I hear the scribbling of her pen on paper and nod. "It's a good poem," she says admirably. I smile--or, at least, I think I do. I can't feel anything anymore.

"Am I smiling?" I ask. I hear Dolly lean forward; her chair squeaks.

"No," she says sadly. "Do you want to smile?"

I nod--I think. "Yes," I say. "Pretend I'm smiling at you."

"Okay. I'm hugging you."

"Pretend I'm hugging you back."

"And I'm crying."

"Why?" I ask.

"Because I wish I could hug you without having to tell you what I'm doing," Dolly says. "I've let go now."

I sigh. "I wish that, too." She has no idea how much I wish it. I hear a bell. "Is it time to go back to class?"

"Yep." I hear Dolly get up. Then I hear the rolling of my wheelchair. "We have math next."

I groan. "You'll write down my answers for me, right?"

"I always do."

I relax at the sound of Dolly's comforting voice. She's the only comfort I have in my dark world, the only friend I have. Mom left a long time ago, and since Dad died when I was a baby, I live in Dolly's house. She's three years older than me, but we're best friends. No, sisters. She's my sister.

"You're my sister," I say. I just need to say it. Saying things is all I can do. I can't write, can't move, can't do anything except talk and listen.

I hear Dolly laugh gently. "My hand is on your shoulder," she says. "And I'm glad you're my sister."

Nobody else would want to be my sister. "Pretend I'm holding you hand," I say. Dolly sniffs, and I wonder if she's crying again. Dolly cries a lot. Not because she's a baby. You can't be a baby when you're eighteen--no, she cries because of me. She wishes I could see her, touch her, even smell her. I wonder what she smells like. Her voice is sweet and soft, so maybe she smells like cake. I can barely remember what cake smells like.

I can't remember anything.

The only thing I can remember is being in that room, the hospital. The memory is faded. Maybe if I could see, I would remember it better. But after that day, my whole life was black. I screamed a lot. I screamed until my lungs ached--or they would have ached, if I could feel them. I screamed so loud that Mom yelled right back, even though she was usually quiet. I heard her slap me, but I couldn't feel it. Then she told me she was going to send me to live with another family.

Mostly, that family was cruel. Dolly lived with her mom, dad, and brother. Her mom, Mrs. Blue, didn't talk much but I knew she didn't like me because when she did talk it was very snappy. Dolly's dad wasn't around much, but when he was he wouldn't take care of me at all. Dolly's brother was born on the same day as she was. "We're twins," she told me. She said they grew in her mom's stomach together, and that they look the same. But they don't act the same. Danny says mean things to me, and sometimes I'm so sad that I cry. He calls me a zombie because of how I look.

Well, he's right. I do look like a zombie.

My eyes are sewed shut, Dolly says. She also says my nose is gone, my tongue covered in some strange substance that doesn't let me taste, and for some reason I can't feel anything. She says she doesn't know how the doctors did it, but they did.

I wish they could take it back.

***

I'm back at Dolly's house now. We share a room, and Dolly says I'm laying down in my bed. I wish I knew what it looked like. She says it's yellow, but I forgot what yellow even is. "Like the sun," she says.

I forgot what the sun is, too.

I've forgotten everything.

***

Let me tell you what it feels like, to only be able to hear. I can't move my body. Other people have to move it for me. It feels like I'm floating in the air, like I have no body. I'm nothing, just an empty spirit floating in a sea of darkness. If I couldn't hear, then I would be gone completely.

I keep thanking my lucky stars that I can hear.

***

"Dolly?" I say. "I have a question."

"What is it?" Dolly says. "I'm sitting next to you, by the way."

"I know, I heard you come onto my bed. Dolly, why am I like this?" I have asked her this so many times before, but keep on asking because maybe someday she might know. Maybe someday she will find the answers that I cannot.

I wait for Dolly's usual sad sigh, for her to say, "no, Opal, I'm so sorry." But this time I hear her laugh.

"I don't completely know," she says. "But I know how we can find out."

I feel happy. I can feel joy spreading to every corner of my heart. "Really? How?" Maybe, if we find out why the doctors took away my senses, they could give them back.

"Let me show you," she says.

And so she does. I wait for a while, hearing lots of sounds. Ten minutes later, she says we're inside the car. I don't know what a car looks like at all, but I know it's like a small house with wheels. I wonder if it's comfortable. I can vaguely remember riding in a car on the way to The Man's office, but the memory is just as blurry as all my other ones.

"We're here," Dolly says after a long time. I hear the door opening, feet crunching on gravel. "Come on."

I hear lots of people shouting. "What's she doing here?" A woman yells.

"It's her!"

"She's back!"

"Is it time?"

"Dolly," I whisper urgently. "What's going on? Why is everyone shouting at me?"

"I'm putting my arm around you," she says. "And I'm pushing your chair. And don't worry, they're not shouting at you."

"It's Opal!" Someone screams.

"Are you sure?" I say nervously.

"Positive," Dolly says lightly. She says it too lightly, like she doesn't even care.

The screams die down, and soon the only thing I can hear is wheels against flooring. Dolly is humming a song, my favorite song. It's about a beautiful young lady who goes blind, and then dips her head into a magic fountain and can see again. When I was twelve, I asked Dolly to bring me to such a fountain. This prompted a very long talk in which she told me magic wasn't real.

I still think she's wrong. I think magic is real. It has to be. If it wasn't, how would the doctors have taken my body away? Well, they didn't really take it away. It just feels like they did.

"We're here," Dolly says. The wheels stop turning.

"Where?" I ask.

"Hello, Opal." A familiar voice can be heard in front of me. I let out a little gasp.

The Man.

"It's you!" I say joyfully. Then I'm angry. "You promised you wouldn't take me away! And now look at me!"

The Man chuckles. "Oh, I'm looking," he muses. "The mask seems to have held up very well."

I have that confusion-caused stomach ache again. He's confusing m--

Wait.

I have a stomach ache.

"What's going on?" I say. "What's happening?" I can feel a big ball of sadness and bewilderment at the back of my throa--

Oh my god. I can feel something in the back of my throat.

I think I'm going to--

"Oh, dear," I hear Dolly say. She sounds disgusted. She's never been disgusted with me. "Where's the cleaner?"

"I'll call him later," The Man says. Only when he shushes me do I realize I'm laughing. I'm laughing harder than I've ever laughed before, laughing so hard that I fear I might laugh out my very lungs.

I threw up.

And I felt it.

I can feel my sore throat, I can feel my aching belly. I can feel my feet, too!

"Oh, forgot her hand," Dolly says. Suddenly I can feel my left hand. I stretch and flex the fingers and let out a very loud scream that pierces my own ears. I can feel my hands! I touch my arms, my legs, rejoicing at being able to feel again. I don't even care about how I'm back, I only care that I am.

"Okay, Opal," Dolly says. I can feel her--Yes!--lean closer to me. "Before we take off the helmet, I need to tell you something."

I reach out a hand and touch her face. Her skin is warm, and I laugh again. I haven't touched anyone for five years. Five whole years. I clasp her whole head and hug her. She pushes me away gently.

"Tell me what?" I say.

Dolly puts her hand on my shoulder. "You've survived, sister," she says quietly. "You've survived with only your ears."

"I don't understand," I say. "What are you talking about?"

"Take off the helmet," The Man says.

"What helmet?" I ask. I feel scared now. "What is going on?"

The light hurts my eyes. The smell hurts my nose.

I am back.

***

Ten years later...

I'm in the same doctor's office, and The Man--sorry, Dr. Browning--is sitting right in front of me and Ruby. I smile at my daughter, but she doesn't look at me.

"You have to choose one sense, Ruby," I try to tell her. I talk very quietly, because nowadays most sounds hurt my ears so bad I sometimes scream from it. With only having been able to hear for five years of my life, my ears are extremely sensitive.

"I don't understand," she shouts. I wince and shoot her a furtive look; I can't help it.

"You have to pass the test," I whisper. But she doesn't hear me; she only gives angry glances at The Man--whoops, Dr. Browning--and taps her foot on the floor. She has to go through the same thing I did, the same thing my Mom did.

The same thing every woman in our family did.

"Ruby," I say quietly. "Ruby."

She still doesn't hear me.

She doesn't hear me tell her what's to come. She doesn't hear me say that she'll have to spend five years in utter torture, having only one sense to rely on. She doesn't hear me tell her that in order to stay alive, she'll have to do this. She doesn't know that if she doesn't choose hearing, she'll never be able to talk again. She doesn't know so many things. Even I don't know many of them.

Our world is broken. There is another one, a better one, but only true survivors can live in it. I can. My daughter can't--not until she survives those five horrible years.

"Fine," she says. "I choose hearing."

I breath out a sigh, whether of relief or regret I don't know.

But either way, I have to leave now. I have to leave this broken world and go on to the next one. The better one.

The one where nothing can go wrong.

Or can it?