The melody of the sea

The sea. The waves. The sand. The wind. I desperately wanted to see them, to feel them, to hear them. I tried to call upon my memories, but they were blurred. A hand came onto my shoulder, startling me and taking me away from my thoughts. My eyes diverted from the beach painting facing me to the person who invaded my personal space. It was Violet, the medical electrocardiography manipulator. For a brief moment, I forgot I was in a waiting room, waiting for my weekly appointment. She beamed at me as she asked me to follow her.

As usual, I sat in that insulate room, waiting for her to put the device on me. At first, our relationship was only professional. But, over time, as she assisted me during the testing phase of the prototypes I had to experiment with, she became a friend. Probably my only one. She put the headset on me, and I watched her exit the room to sit behind a computer. Through the glass separating our two rooms, she gestured that she was ready to launch the test. After a minute, her eyes lifted to me, and she asked me if I heard anything; I shook my head. To be honest, we were used to that. It wasn’t the first failure at all. Or maybe should I say that none device I tried worked. But despite the results, the company never gave up trying to improve its technologies.

I observed her come and leave several times, doing rehearsals, writing things down, and retrying the tests. About an hour, I felt my head heat up. I thought that it was a sort of short headache, but it just kept growing. Violet couldn’t see me as I tried to attract her attention to me. Feeling dizzy, I removed the device myself and raised from my seat to exit the room, but I didn’t get the chance.

I opened my eyes in a white room, machines all around me. An intravenous was linked to my vein, and I felt dazed. A woman in white entered the room, followed by a man in a suit. Panic took hold of me. Where was I? The man quickly explained that I swooned during the testing. Violet found me and called the emergency. According to the doctor, I had a bad allergy to the latex on the headset. That was weird. It wasn’t the first time I put it on, and I never had any kind of allergies to it. After a battery of tests and examinations that took the rest of the day, I was finally free to go home. The man in the suit - Rayan, as he presented himself to me - let me no choice but to drive me back. It was a little intimidating. It was the first time we encountered each other. He was the CEO of the company but looked young to hold this position. He must have been thirty years old at the most. As I already said, it was the first time we met, but his cologne had a particular fragrance I was sure I had smelled before. Before we arrived, he stopped the car to get a take-out to be ensured that I wouldn’t cook tonight.

A week later, I had surgery due to the latex infection I didn’t spot soon enough, and since then, daily care. Rayan has been there for me at each step. And every single morning, even a month later, he came along with the nurse and brought me breakfast. She said that I had to rest for another month, but I felt as if I was in recovery my whole life. I tried to blend into society, but society didn’t want people like me. So I became a writer, staying anonymously behind my computer, at home, writing all day long in the most complete silence. I hardly ever walked out of my place. Even for my courses, I paid someone to be delivered. I’ve got that anxiety on my shoulder constantly, making me dread the external life. I only got out for my appointment at the company once a week, and even there, a car was sent to pick me up and bring me back home. I did have a family, but it was tough to be with them, to communicate with them. Around them, I felt like I was a stranger. So, I stopped going to their family dinner and spent every feast by myself. I didn’t want people to pity me, and I was sick of seeing them uncomfortable around me. I couldn’t blame them. They couldn’t understand. So when the nurse told me to rest, I laughed. What else could I have done? Rayan was looking at me, but it was as if he wasn’t here, as if he was lost in his thoughts.

“What do you think about a trip for Christmas?” Rayan texted me the same evening.

“What are you thinking about?” I responded suspiciously.

“I was thinking about a trip to the seaside. My father has a beach house, but it has been years that anyone set foot in there. You still have a month of convalescence, the sea air will do you good.”

“For a month?” I wanted to decline the offer. However, since my eyes landed on that beach painting in the waiting room, I thought constantly about the sea.

“As long as you want.”

The sea. The waves. The sand. The wind. I dreamed of them so many times, and I finally could feel them. Rayan’s house was minimalist, but it was just perfect here. Large windows gave a display on the sea, and as the sun was about to set, the landscape was even more beautiful. I shivered at the idea of running into the sea, willing to feel its freshness, test the salty liquid on my tongue, see fish, smell the marine air, and hear the melody of the waves. However, I stood behind the window until Rayan came to me with a wicker basket, suggesting we picnic on the beach. A smile drew itself on my face, and my hands surrounded his arm. We walked past reeds, and I couldn’t help but pass my hands through them, feeling the sweet pasture on my palm. Rayan asked me if I liked the sensation of being here, and I couldn’t have expressed how much I loved it.

We set a tablecloth on the warm sand, and from the basket, he got out two glasses, some bouchées, a mixed salad, and a bottle of red wine. The sun was low, coloring the sky with beautiful pastel colors. The wind was light, carrying the marine scent. Everything was perfect, but even as something was missing, being here with Rayan was fulfilling. I didn’t know when we got closer. Things happened so smoothly between us. And that night, on the beach, we had our first kiss. Should I say that it was my first kiss? People like me didn’t attract people. The society. Society had hierarchized the human being. The healthiest, the richest, the most beautiful on top. Was there something I could do? They liked us to think that we couldn’t be happy like the others, that having people’s empathy was a chance, and that if we get that, it was more than sufficient. But why did we have to limit our happiness? I had the right to be truly happy, like any other human.

Rayan asked me why I stood behind the window earlier while he prepared dinner instead of going outside. Why experiment the life behind a window, huh? Even facing the place I wanted to go to the most, I was afraid to access it. I was afraid of so much, even of my own happiness, but now, Rayan was making things so easy.

Watching the last part of the sun disappear behind the skyline, I felt a wave of peace flow in me. The first time in a long time. It felt familiar, like a memory I couldn’t access, but that I could sense. The house, the beach, him, they definitely were familiar, and I felt confident to let him know my feeling. He gave me the sweetest smile he had ever given me and held me more tightly in his arms.

As usual, since we got here, I woke up early. Curling up on the sofa, with a hot cup of tea and a fluffy, warm blanket on my lap, I waited for the sun to appear on the horizon. That morning, Rayan joined me for the spectacle nature was offering us. He delicately took my hand and put a box on my palm. I looked at him in confusion, and he urged me to open it. A bunch of old photos was set inside. I wandered them until I saw a face I knew well. I watched him disconcerted. Why was my father there? Tears came to my eyes but didn’t fall. I kept watching the photos to notice that I was there, too. The little girl in the photographs seemed happy, reckless. I was old enough to remember the day the photo was taken, but I couldn’t remember a single detail. I only recognized the place because it was in front of the beach house.

Rayan explained everything to me. My father and his were best friends, so we spent a lot of time together on weekends and holidays. In fact, the house was built by the two of them. I couldn’t remember anything, not even Rayan when we met at the hospital. After the accident, I lost almost all my memories and never managed to recover them. They became blurred as if censured. I felt Rayan put on my ears a device he has apparently been working on every day since we got here. Some seconds passed, but as always, I still didn’t hear a single sound. Usually, that didn’t affect me, but there, it hurt.

When our fathers died in a lab explosion, I was there. My father told me to wait for him in a room, but then, a detonation happened. My father and Rayan’s father were together, and none of them survived. As for me, the explosion projected me, and I lost my hearing. Since then, I have lived in utter silence, weighing on me every day. Our fathers worked in the research, seeking to restore hearing to the deaf or giving it to those born with it. Rayan’s mother was deaf by birth, so he did his best to continue our fathers’ work. She was his daily motivation. But as his mother died a few years later from cancer, he never stopped his research - for me.

I raised from the couch to go outside, wanting to be soothed by the first wind of the day. I was about to remove the headset, thinking it would be the last time I would ever try a device, but something stopped me dead in my movements.

“Rayan!” I shouted, turning to him, and he ran to me in panic. “I can hear the waves!”

“What did you say?” He asked out loud, exhilarating with emotions, but I couldn’t hear him. There only was the sound of the waves in my ears, the sweet melody of the sea.

The sea. The waves. The sand. The wind. I wanted to see them, to feel them, to hear them. And you made it happen. Thank you.