Work Text:
How do you know you’re alive?
—
Life after losing his hearing is quiet.
It sounds redundant - of course it’s quiet. It’ll always be quiet because Heart can’t hear anything anymore - but it still leaves him feeling like a string pulled too tight, taut and unstable and unable to move. (It reminds him of his classmate who played the guitar, who always complained about the string tension and - who he doesn’t see anymore. Can’t. Because he doesn’t -)
It’s not just sound. It's everything, from sight to taste to smell. It’s the fact that Heart lives in his house all by himself and he cannot go out and the only company he has is a keyboard that is useless and a mirror that only shows a distorted version of himself, a reflection turned upside down and inverted. It's the fact that chocolate doesn't taste as sweet anymore.
It's quiet because in a house big enough to fit the world, there is only Heart and silence and the echo of something else long forgotten.
It feels a little bit like solitary confinement, sometimes.
How do you know you’re alive?
—
He tries, at first. He really does. Heart sits down at the dinner table and writes a greeting to his mom, asks how her day has been. She glances at the paper and makes a face Heart pretends not to see, and writes back ‘fine’.
Okay.
It hurts more than he wants to admit. But he can live with it. They just need time to adjust to it, that’s all. Right?
His father looks at him with pity, whenever he does look at Heart, and that is worse.
How do you know you exist?
—
People come over, in the beginning - offering condolences, exaggerated mouthing, sympathy. Heart hates it, hates the feeling of being pitied.
He hates it even more when people stop coming over.
How do you measure your sadness?
—
There is only so much time Heart can spend on the internet before feeling insane. He scrolls and scrolls and tries to find something that will pique his interest, but all he finds is news and events and people and life and it feels like mockery.
He stops looking, eventually.
How do you know you’re a living, breathing human?
—
He lies down on the floor and stares at the ceiling. The ceiling stares back, the only company he has.
It’s so pathetic it’s almost funny.
Heart thinks he laughs. He can’t hear it.
How do you know?
—
Heart isn’t sure what’s worse - the fact that he can’t hear, or the fact that he can’t talk.
There’s nothing stopping him from talking, in actuality, but there is the weighted pause every time he opens his mouth, tries to say something. There is the painfully awkward way his father winces before writing out a response, and it’s just so suffocating he wonders if he will choke to death.
He can’t hear, but he can still communicate. He can still talk. It’s just…
No one will hear him anymore.
How do you know you’re heard?
—
Heart feels unsettled and restless, flitting from room to room in an aimless pattern. He walks into the living room and pauses, staring at the lakorn his mom has forgotten to turn off.
He spends the rest of the day watching a show he has never even heard of - it has subtitles, and there are people, and that’s all that really matters. It’s not so lonely, and that’s all Heart cares about.
How do you know you’re alone?
—
His parents are just keeping him safe, trying to protect him - right? They just want what’s best for Heart.
Maybe they don’t see how Heart is slowly falling apart. Maybe they do. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, and that's the worst part - he could ask. He sees his mother every single day, he could ask. But he can’t.
Heart can’t -
How do you know?
—
The worst part is maybe the fact that he’s so much better off than so many people. He has a house, he has parents who still love him (they do, he knows they do), Heart has everything he could need.
The worst part is the fact that a thousand acres of land won’t make up for the loneliness that burrows into his bones and makes a home right next to his heart. He would trade everything away for just - someone to talk to.
How do you know if you deserve it?
—
There’s an article that says people can go insane in solitary confinement.
Heart looks at his room and tries not to cry.
How do you know how to live?
—
Heart tries origami. He finds an online tutorial, carefully creases the paper and props it up on his table. The paper cranes start out lopsided, at first, before taking shape. It makes him feel proud. He makes enough to cover his table in them, colorful and bright and something new.
He shows his parents, who nod and go back to ignoring him.
He decides it reminds him too much of the girls in his class. The cranes end up crumpled in the bottom of his drawer.
Maybe Heart is the crane, too.
How do you know you’re here?
—
'Make 1000 paper stars to make your wish come true!' the banner says, flashing yellow and red and orange.
Heart turns off his computer.
How do you count your dreams, give them tangible value?
—
It’s not curiosity that makes him search up sign language. It’s desperation and fear and exhaustion and - a wish, maybe. He has no one to talk to and all he can hear is dead silence when he's been so used to laughter and piano and music and sound and he's so desperate for a voice and he's just so, so alone.
It's almost midnight when Heart climbs out of bed and opens his computer, blinking at his reflection in the smudged darkness. He turns his volume all the way down and watches the lady on his screen and follows her lips, follows her hands. He copies the motion, clumsy and unfamiliar, like a prayer and a hope that he will get to use it one day with someone else. That maybe Heart will be able to communicate.
He learns it for himself and for the future and because no one can hear him so maybe, maybe this way they will.
And Heart is angry and hurt and lonely and tired and silent, but - he signs good morning in the mirror. It feels like something.
How do you -?
—
He finds an old box from years ago - a puzzle left untouched. It’s a marine one, blue and pretty. It reminds him of the time he’d gone on a trip to the beach with his friends.
Heart opens it up and sets up a table in the spare room. He gets through half of it before he gives up.
How do you?
—
Heart doesn’t exist.
Existence is mattering and doing and interacting and Heart does none of that. He stays in his house all day, a living ghost, and watches glimpses of the world pass by. He loads up another movie and falls asleep on the couch, flashing explosions making the room feel a little less empty.
Heart doesn’t exist, and neither do the characters on the screen so maybe they won’t exist together and maybe Heart won’t be so soul crushingly alone.
Maybe this is all Heart is made for - silence and solitary confinement.
How do you know you’re alive?
Maybe you don’t.
Maybe you’re not.