Deaf

I wrote this September, 2007. It is about my brother who passed away July, 2006. Please forgive all of the critical mistakes in this piece. I wrote it while I was 16, on my front porch in speed.

as i try to figure out who to be mad at who take these bitter words off my tongue at, who to blame for the stupidity, and for that tragedy that happened that dry july sunday morning. the highway seemed calm that morning, but then again i might just have been zoning it out along with everything else. the hospital lies there. across the street from the white house with a red door. broken down blue faded shutters, typical twenty year old. the porch was painted blue once before but the sun dryed the paint in which it started to crack. the grass was sorta high and the red truck was missing. i was paying attention to all of this. i was studying it. it seemed like the 13 minutes was eternity that i was outside the hospital dreading the wait of some horrible words that somehow i instinctively knew were about to come off the doctors tongue. i sat there in a big pink shirt with white letters, FFCLA, baggy jeans and no shoes. I had a hour and 22 minutes of sleep. i came home that night around five a.m. little he and i knew a house was about to be the color of black,red,orange,yellow,etc. it seemed like he was in a different world. while i lied my eyes closed shut in a tiny room with the rest of my family, it felt comforting. we never do that. all sleep together. but we did. 7 in the morning there was a terrible terrible bang at the door. words of horror on the other side of that old oak door. doing 85 is slow when you're in a major need to say a last goodbye. press the peddle for 100, please? we stop for gas. the devil had sucked the car dry and put us off by 7 minutes. 7 minutes closer there could have resulted for the better or for the worse. 7 minutes is closer to the reality. the sucky part of that morning. but 7 minutes, could have we said a goodbye? did he wait? did death rose upon him 7 minutes earlier? im still sitting on that cold empty sidewalk of concrete. the concrete holds the answer whether hes alive or hes gone. its laughing at me. its the devil. he won.

a nurse and a cop walk out to me. stiffness of his uniform is all i could pay attention to. i didn't listen to his words, i promise, i read his lips, like slow motion, and that was enough for me. i read them clearly, i knelt down. i guess i was screaming loud, i mean LOUD because the mental society was my next location, so the cop said. those screams were for you. i thought maybe screaming that loud, i could finally hear the reality for myself. but it didn't work out that way. i was still deaf. i sure as hell wasnt blind. beautiful mother walked out through the doors. broken, tangled, shattered. her heart fell straight to her toes. she was nothing. empty. did she leave with you to? i looked across the street, remembering i still had that house. some type of comfort for me. crossing that main highway, i walked across. almost hoping God would take my life to. but i guess it was the devil walking on my side that morning. God wasn't there. it was definetley the devil. i walked so slowly. no cars were left or right. i almost waited. but i couldn't. i had to go to your house to find the reality for myself. i knocked. your friend, answered. his eyes were as red as an apple, his cheeks drugged down. i could only imagine the sounds of his sobs but i was still deaf. i hugged him. figuring i could feel you. but i was only cold. was it the devil next to me? taking my hope, my faith, my heart. i stepped into the house after your friend lighting a camel in 2 seconds. sucking the tobacco through the filter almost, he puffed. your other friends gathered in the kitchen, almost as dragged out as the first. i looked around, your belongings scattered. i looked for you. i honestly did. you were still yet not to be found. your last friend there laying on the couch asleep, with no clue in the world, sleeping peacefully. i wanted to switch him places almost. he was lucky. he awoke of all the loud cries around me. i was still deaf. he looked right at me, asked and i told. i tried to talk loud enough so i could actually hear myself lay those words straight out so i could check myself into reality, but i couldn't. did i lose my hearing forever? or just this dumb sunday morning. people eventually started showing up. person after person. i found myself his room, i lead myself straight to his bed that smelt of his hair extremely and i lay. i was hoping noone could find me, of course they couldn't hear me. i imagined everyone had to have the same hearing loss as me that morning. i lied there. i seen his things. his bodiless clothes hanging in his empty closet. his feetless shoes spread out by the door. then for a brief second, EVERYTHING STARTED SCREAMING AT ME. i wasn't deaf no longer. his room was SCREAMING at me. terribly. i walked out. i almost wanted to be deaf again. it wasn't reality. it was my own world. i walked out. found my heartless mother, smoking. she hadn't smoked in 5 years. we were proud. but i was proud of her that morning for lighting that cigarette. smart choice. i walked passed the kitchen looking on the counter seeing half empty red gatorade bottles, knowing his DNA and lips were once upon that bottle's rim. i finally found my way outside.

finally. it was just as quiet as the rest of the world that morning, besides his room. i seen people i haven't seen in years, and people i've never seen. people were trying to hold on to me and hold my heart up to where it belongs but their words were finding theirselves going through one ear and out the other. did they not know i was deaf? but they were just trying to help. although i didnt want to be around anyone. i wanted to be blind as long as dead that morning. i wanted the sun to set and the darkness to arise, the cold to wrap around my body and just let me lie there. take my feelings away and my brain, let me lay there heartless and emotionally challenged. i wanted to just be gone, period. i wanted him back. he was my hearing. time finally finally changed a little bit and we left. THANKFULLY. that city was killing my tiny itty bitty part of my heart that was left, how i had some, i had no idea. that city was screaming images at me. not words. images. remember, i was deaf, not blind. we finally got out of there in an nauseous car ride. a painful car ride. the sky was mimicking my tears and my deafness. it was laughing at me. but i knew past the bullying of the clouds and reflection laid him. my hearing. my heart. each town i reached i was deafer and deafer. i figured escaping would help me, but i was definitely wrong. the car ride was the longest time in my life. i replayed every single memory OVER and OVER like a broken record, or a scratched DVD. i was replaying my life in my own head. on my own t.v.

finally reaching a house that was definitely now empty hurt worse. people people people. there were millions everywhere. words to travel fast. the whole town was already mourning before we even got there. food was already baked. flowers and plants sat on my porch alone and unloved. they seemed miserable like us. i was still deaf most importantly. i didn't hear a thing. i seen the rest of my blood. they were heartless like me. my mother seemed deaf. i think she had my side effects. my little brother, being autistic, he didn't exactly understand like us. and my father, wasn't strong at all. my whole life i never seen him cry, ever. and well, he was crying more than me. i went inside. i ran up those stairs. i locked myself in his old room. sat there. deaf for a second. looked at his old high school memories on the walls, his old clothes, my hearing was starting to get pierced. it was SCREAMING at me again. i ran out. it was dead silence at the other side of that door again. the clock was still slow, we were only at noon. wow. more food and plants poured into my house. more people than i know what to do with. i hid.

i probably did the horriblest thing but the smartest thing i could have ever did in this situation,

i went to sleep.

 

i woke up around 10 that night, expecting to see no more faces. the smell of food to be gone, and the ugliness of 'death' plants to be gone. but what wasn't gone any longer, was my hearing. for i had woke myself up with the horrible screeching of my own voice, realizing the reality that he was gone. fifteen years of memories had walked up my stairs into my bathroom and flushed themselves down the drain it felt like.

i realized then, he was gone.

Author's Note

ignore grammar problems, feedback is welcomed

Reviews

[Faffy]

i am sorry for your loss, loosing a family member is the hardest thing anybody can go through. this is a beautiful and amazing piece of writing, you had me right from the very beginning, your words here scream sadness and melancholy. i loved this piece and it going in my shelf.

-Roshan