Aeron Murakami
Aeron remembered hearing loud rings fill the silence of his empty bedroom.
It was dark, and he had a flashlight held in the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. In his left, he held a Hiragana chart, neatly tabled with Japanese characters.
It was late; he could tell because the television in the lounge was off. That usually signified that his parents were asleep.
When the ringing first struck him, it came almost naturally, like it was always there but Aeron never noticed it. It simply melded into the silence and filled it with white noise. He tried to wave it away with his hand, and he smacked his ears a couple of times, but it came back like an insistent bug.
Being only four, he dismissed it.
"You write it like this," Aeron demonstrated, as he traced the words afal neatly on the corner of his book. Apple.
His friend's clumsy hand tried to replicate what he wrote, but she dropped her pencil halfway through the f. She balled her fists in frustration. In the noise of the unsettled classroom, Aeron didn't hear the clatter of the pencil as it fell off his desk. His friend screamed something, but he missed it.
"Could you say that again?" he requested politely.
The girl raged. "I said Welsh is too hard! I'm only five!" She pushed herself away from his desk and stormed off.
Aeron stared at his miscellaneous school utensils. She'd knocked his bottle over and titled his pencil case. He adjusted it patiently. "Well, I'm learning Japanese and Welsh right now and it's easy," he mocked under his breath. Beside him, his classmate giggled soundlessly.
Aeron sat with his knees tucked to his chest as his father pointed to several dirt piles.
"This place here," his father prodded at a particularly small opening, "this is a fossilised tooth." He glanced expectantly at Aeron, who was tugging at some stray grass strands.
"That's cool, Dad." He hid a yawn behind his elbow. "A human tooth?"
His dad glowed. "No, son." He removed a brush from his belt and started dusting away at dirt. "A dinosaur's."
Aeron shot up from the ground. "A dinosaur?" He immediately clambered to his dad's shoulder and watched as his father slowly uncovered the tooth. "I wanna see! Let me try!"
His dad chuckled and Aeron could feel the vibrations along his chest. "Of course, but I'll be pointing at where you need to dust, alright?"
Aeron pouted. "I wanna do it myself!" He made a grab for the brush but his father slipped it back into his belt.
His dad ruffled his head with a big hand. "Not yet, Aeron – you're only six."
The doctor made a strange, disappointed noise and removed the mini torch from Aeron's ear. His parents leaned in, shoulders tense.
The doctor rolled back on his wheelie chair and stared them straight in the eyes. Aeron played with a loose piece of thread on the armrest of his chair.
"Your child won't be able to hear in seven years."
His parents froze. Aeron stopped fiddling with the string.
No one said anything. It should've been silent, Aeron knew, but there was only the ring in his head, growing louder and louder, becoming a bigger bug as the days passed.
Suddenly, his parents exploded into a wild burst of static.
Aeron went back to the armrest and attempted to pull out the thread.
His father put the book aside, and quickly ran over the signs. "I…think I got this." He quickly ran over it again.
Aeron didn't give him any more time to prepare. "Start, Mum!"
His mother flipped the board. I want to eat.
Without thinking, Aeron signed the words quickly. His dad fumbled through several phrases with hasty fingers. His mother smacked the timer. "Done! You loose, honey."
Aeron tackled his father into the couch. "You're too slow, Dad!"
The family erupted into a fit of giggles.
"Son, do your homework!"
Aeron ran off with his hearing aids between his fingers. "Sorry, can't hear you!"
"I know you can hear me!" his mother cried out in dismay, leaning out from the kitchen.
"Say that again?" Aeron asked. His friend exhaled in an annoying, impatient way.
"Forget it," he said, and ripped open a bag of chips.
The ringing in his ears slowly started to build as neither boy said anything. It rippled in his head in an endless drone. He fiddled with his hearing aid, turning up the dial. Aeron fisted the grass beneath his fingers – that was the fifth adjustment this week. The ringing thrum blocked out most conversations, and he could barely hear the gentle voice of his mother anymore.
Someone smacked his shoulder roughly. Aeron toppled to the side.
His friend stood above him, irked. He opened his mouth and said something, but the ringing spiked and blocked it out before Aeron could quite catch it.
"What'd you say?"
His friend huffed soundlessly. "I said the school bell rung!" He marched away before Aeron could ask further.
He was confused. Did the bell really ring?
When Aeron was fourteen, he woke to silence.