DAPHNE
Life's a crazy ride. No one knows that more than me and my sister, Bay. When we were fifteen, we found out that we had been switched at birth. What transpired was enough to fill an entire soap opera and there's no point in going into too much detail. The switch changed a lot of things but surprisingly, the biggest changes came ten years after that weird day in the genealogy office.
I took a gap year in my junior year of college. Bay and I did some volunteer work during that time, mostly with deaf charities (I am deaf myself). Anyway, I graduated a year later than everyone else in my class, so after a few more years, I decided t take a leap of faith. I spent some time in China, but I decided to do an internship abroad in a modern hospital to gain some useful experience and with Bay's help, I settled on Sydney, Australia. Year-round good weather, better place for atheists and agnostics, and their sign language had a lot of the same signs and American Sign Language and British Sign Language (my English sister-in-law taught me BSL for when I visit her).
I arrived in Sydney in early January where it was still summer. I meandered around the city and finally crashed on my bed and slept for nineteen hours after the twenty hour plane ride nearly drained the life out of me. The day after next, I was off. The hospital in Sydney was pretty close to every other American hospital I've been to, it was just a little harder to read lips with all the thick accents. I studied Auslan (Australian Sign Language) for a month before I left, so I was pretty well prepared.
Then came January 31. I was asked to observe and help out in the emergency room. Some guy accidentally cut his hand and was losing blood pretty fast. It was an experience that reminded me that being a doctor isn't for everyone, because working on this guys hand was like the ending of the Evil Dead remake.
I remember that day so clearly. After the nurse left, the man asked me how long it will take for his hand to recover. "That's a pretty deep cut, so I'd say a couple weeks before you can have the stitches removed. You're lucky though, you missed a ligament by two inches, then you would have been in real trouble," I said as I was washing my hands. "I'm Jim" he said. "I'm Daphne." "What's that accent of yours?" asked Jim. With some trepidation I said "I'm deaf." "Oh," he said before signing "I took Auslan in college."
"I'm American, but I think I understood most of that," I said and tried to sign in Auslan. "Nice," he smiled. There was something about him. I didn't quite know what know what it was. I thought he was cute and charming, but there was another layer that I just didn't feel about Liam or Jeff or Mingo (I'd go into more detail, but there's really no point). "How'd that happen anyway," I asked, pointing to his hand. "Cut my hand on a set piece," said Jim.
"Set piece?"
"Yeah, at the Capitol. We're doing Le Mis."
"You're an actor?"
"Director."
I played young Eponine when Carlton did Les Mis when I was 10. We started talking about the show, then about my childhood in Missouri, then about his childhood in Adelaide, then about the switch. We spent a while on the switch, because I usually have to e plain it a few times before they actually believe it. "Whoa. That's something you don't hear everyday," said Jim. "Tell me about it," I sighed. Once we were able to get passed the switch, the conversation continued as planned before the doctor came in and discharged him.
As he walked out of his room, he turned and said "Are you doing anything tomorrow at noon?" "I've got an hour off for lunch," I said trying not to blush in front of the nurses. We exchanged numbers and I agreed to come by the theatre tomorrow around noon. As I settled into bed in my tiny rented apartment, I skyped with my Mom and the Kennishes. It was six in the morning back home, so everyone was a little groggy. I didn't tell them I met someone, cause I didn't think anything would come of it yet.
I had butterflies the entire morning. When it was time for my lunch break, I looked up the Capitol theatre on my phone and set off into the modern metropolis of Sydney. I finally found myself standing in front of a tall brick building with the giant blue peacock on the side. I tapped on the box office and told the women I was here to see Jim. After she left for a second to ask, she let me in. I found Jim standing at the front of the stage with a guy in his twenties. "I saw him say, "You need to project mate, you're almost there. You need to make the back here you." After the actor left, Jim spotted me. We both smiled. "How's the hand?" I asked.