The earphones are tight and the chair is tall, so tall my feet dangled in space.
I am in a booth, a plain one, tan, four walls and one window, that’s it. They could have at least hung a poster.
I hear a noise in the earphone, he is speaking, the doctor that my parents found. He has a funny mustache, all curly on the ends. I don’t know what he is trying to tell me so I sit still. They will tell me again if it is necessary.
The words make sense this time; he wants me to repeat anything he says from now on.
I nod.
I can see him in the window now with a microphone.
He waves.
I wave.
I hear something.
Is it a word? I try to figure out what he is saying. It is like a puzzle sometimes. I listen carefully, I am close to it, but another word comes. I try to form this one and lose the first one, my head hurts.
I am going to sound stupid if I don’t speak soon. He repeats it, this time I hear it. “Hotdog,” I say aloud. I am happy, but no time to rejoice as another word comes. I try to form it on my tongue, I can’t.
I begin chewing my lips. I do this when I fear failure. My fingers tuck a loose strand of my hair from my ponytail behind my ear.
“Superman,” I repeat. The funny tingle runs through me again. Then a few more words come, they are clearer. I can say them now.
My eight-year-old mind scrambles to keep up again as parts of the word fades. Parts no longer coming through again.
Why do they go away sometimes?
My blue sneakers bang against the stool legs as metalic sounds vibrate out and tease me.
I know some sounds are words, but they hide from me, just giving me little bits to let me know something is there.
The man opens the door and I look to him, he doesn’t speak now, the adults always stop talking after awhile.
He waves his hand for me to come out.
I am relieved to be done and yet scared that I failed something, someone.
He hands me a lollipop. I am embarrassed but take it. I’ll give it to my little brother later.
My parents come in and I can leave now.
The door closes and I walk over and sit in a chair.
I look around; the walls are bare, except for a window. I look beside me and an older lady is there, she is talking to me I think, I nod as I chew my lips and my feet bang against the chair legs.

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Reflecting on this memory I remember how things were small and confined in my world. I was between the hearing and deaf world, and without technology I would have been lost to it, but the results came back and the doctors found that with some minor operations I would be able to hear normally, with the exception of a few tones.
In school I was cooperative, kind and labeled a daydreamer. One of the teachers moved me to the front of the class and took note that I wasn't hearing many things. This was how my loss was discovered.
My dad felt bad, he is hearing impaired, his one ear has always been deaf from childhood and his right is no where perfect so we learned to talk in louder voices at home, thus my deafness was not discovered.
I can recall that after the operations the world was filled with all these missing sounds. Bees did buzz, refridgerators made a hum, fans a whirr and jets high up were actually not soundless. I spent many of my waking hours finding the source for new noises, right down to someone chewing gum nearby.
I still struggle some as I have some hearing loss to this day, minor infractions really. I have 75% of my hearing after years of operations. I had a relapse in my late 20's where I lost my hammer in one ear and half of my tubes closed in the other, I lost the ability to talk on the telephone for 6 months, but corrective surgery brought most of it back. I can only be grateful.
I think I get my attitude from my dad, he never made his hearing loss an issue in his life.
I will put on caption with my television, my father won't. He insists on just turning it up louder.
Once when he visited he had the volume at an extreme rate, I came in and said "dad, can you hear it?"
He says, "I like this movie but I can't understand it." I then informed him that he had it on a spanish channel.
He says, "Well that's okay, I seen it before," and continued to finish the movie at the same rate.