The Sound of Everything

Just one day in the life of Lux, a deaf girl. It uses her point of view to explore the contrasts of reality and nature with our martial world when soundless.

        Lux laid on a hill looking calmly at the sky, trying hard not to squint, less she miss the sight of the clouds walking lazily along, hand and hand with their love, the wind. Turing her head from the intensity of the sun's love she looked at the grass. The sun burst through the fragile hairs making them a pale green. Suddenly a red light blazed through the grass, vanished, then attacked again. 

        Lux woke up to her police siren, watching it turn around and around, flashing that same blood soaked red. Sound was made, but it was incompressible to her deaf ears. Without a sigh she got up. Sitting on her bed Lux looked around at the graveyard of her room, solemn, quite, graves of past days scattered across the barren wood floor. She dressed and sat in front of her mirror, putting on makeup, hiding her restless face. Lux stopped and stared at her self, as if pondering something, not frail and meaningless, but something only she, with her view of this spectrum of life, could hear. She turned and got up, grabbing her duffle bag, she claimed was a purse, she slung it over her long torso, being sure not to catch it in her slightly frizzy hair as she walked out of the room. 

        Downstairs she sat at the dinner table, fondling the tea her mother sat in front of her as she took her own seat across the table. 

        "It's three in the afternoon. You're sleeping your life away." Her mother signed, her face ragged with years of motherhood. 

        Rolling her eyes Lux signed back, "Well maybe I like what is in my dreams, more than what is in life."

        "But thats not real."

        "So, it feels real. I mean I think I even hear in my-" Her mother cut her off by hitting the table in frustration, signing more. Frustrated, but not mad Lux stared at her ignoring what she was singing as the silence engulfed her and rocked her back to calm. Fed up Lux stood and left as her mother tried to get her attention before giving up as she walked out. 

        Outside Lux smelt the harsh air, worn by harsh lovers, and walked to the bus stop while texting her friend Alice, to meet up. As she sat on the bench waiting for the bus she rummaged in her bag, that Marry Poppins would be jealous of, and pulled out Out of Africa and let her self become lost in a distant coffee farm. Once on the bus Lux abounded Africa and took to looking out the window at the trees and buildings, more buildings then trees, running by. And once and a while her eyes would connect, for a split second, with some random person, and at that moment time seemed to stop as they followed each other until the faiths broke them away, placing each other in each of their lives for ever. 

        

        Walking to Alice's house from the bus stop, Lux looked up through the over hanging branches, her hand on her bag looking through the shy leaves that looked as if they were trying to follow the clouds above them. Looking back down she saw a dark dog bark at her, for getting to close, and she stopped and stared at it, wondered, as silence hugged her tight, what came out of a dogs mouth. With a finale glance she continued on finally reaching Alice's door and knocking, feeling the pilling paint and worm wood under her skin. Alice answered with ragged hair and frosty makeup from last night, with a smile she let her in. Tapping her on her shoulder Lux turned as Alice said, slowly, so she could read her speech, to do anything, she was going back to bed till that night. Relived from the strain of socializing, at least for a while, Lux walked around Alice's house foundling this and that feeling every crevasse and seeing every speck of dust on everything she touhced. One doll she passed caught her eye especially and she carefully, as though it was a child, picked it up staring at its marble eyes that curved like hills and perfect plastic skin. Lux ran her fingers through her straw hair as the sun's light watched calmly on, shinning through the hair, making it a soft gold, like wheat. Feeling contempt with the doll she placed it down calmly, looking around, and finding nothing else to look at, she made her way over to the nearby couch and let her eye lids roll down her eyes, leading her to sleep. 

 

        Waking up Lux looked around, this time with out interest in her eyes, just a cloudy fog of past days. Drawn by the sound inside her Lux got up and grabbed an empty canvass that Alice always had laying around, and picking some paints she headed outside. Placing the canvass she watched the grass fold softly under it, and remembering the feeling she traced her hand across the young seedlings of nature before standing up and lighting a cigarette. She stared at the canvass, as the sun splashed red light across it, letting her emotions whisper to her and she saw the canvass explode in her head as the smoke from her cigarette rolled, like clouds over hills, out of her mouth. Flicking the dead cigarette aside she attacked the canvass as if it was God himself flinging this color and that, jabbing one color forward while only slightly running another across and with her finale move she slashed a scar of red across the painting. With a sigh, from the sudden burst of energy, Lux leaned her head back, breathing in the harsh air that was trapped between man's creations, and feeling content with the carnage Lux took the painting and walking slowly, but not lazily, placed it under Alice's patio, in case it rained, and went inside just as Alice, apple in hand, motioned to the door to go. 

 

        In the car, soon filled with people, Lux looked out at the lights. The lights that tried so hard to be like suns, as they connected with her eyes , or tried too, like those random people that were forever stuck in her life, then, like the people, they disappeared into darkness, swallowed by nights greed, but with a finale push they would explode out again, just as the music in the car exploded out of the doors, vibrating her body. As she was beginning to welcome the numerous returns of the want to be suns, they pulled into a parking lot and pilled out. 

        Now standing around the car, Lux looked at the evenly gender split faces, trying to read what they said as some little pills came around followed by clouds of cigarette. Ready to try what ever Lux gulped it down with a shot of vodka and followed them into the dark, sound washed club. 

 

        The pills worked fast as Lux danced, not to the beat of the music, but to the movement of the people around her. And as she looked around she saw the sound, but didn't understand it, like someone trying to read when they are illiterate. All around her streams of light breaking through clouds of smoke engulfed her as she felt her body pulse to the vibrations of the clogged air. Dancing, Lux let her eyelids close, plunging her into a welcomed darkness. With a smile she found her self looking at the lazy clouds, and inhaling a breath of virgin air, she closed her eyes again as the wind glided over her body, like it does on a hill, embracing her softly, like a lover. 

Author's Note

This version is a newer version then the what the comments are about from the 30th of March and before.

Reviews

[Dustin Chang]

I really liked it. I think you could flesh it out even more and make it even better. The short exchange btwn Lux and her mom part, it takes a wind out of the magical image filled world of Lux that you created so beautifully a little bit. Maybe you can change the order of things so we won't find out until the end that she is in fact, deaf?

[Travis Lawrence]

This is f---ing awesome, man. Seriously some great, great prose you've produced here. Creative topic and you use all the senses besides sound so well, you say how the air smells and use color often, and the ending when you describe how she sees the music in the motion of the crowd, that put me right there inside of her, and I saw it all so clearly, and felt what it was like to be her so clearly. I really can't say how much I admire this, and though I do drop praise around the cafe a lot because well there is almost always SOMETHING positive to say and I like to focus on that first and foremost, anyway, this isn't like that at all. Very, very good write. Only one thing I would change, just one:

"but didn't understand it, like someone looking at this page with out being able to read"
--What I dislike about the end is that you point out that the person is reading, and you place the emphasis on the page, which distracts the reader by taking him/her out of the story and bringing them back to reality. Here's an easy fix:
"but didn't understand it, like illiterate eyes running across a page of print." ... or something of the sort.

Again, I am thoroughly pleased to have read this story, well done!

-Travis

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This is a good start. I liked your idea. I think it could have a little more descritption in it. There weren't that many mistakes. I think the idea is good. It has a lot of potential!