Her brow furrows in the silence. "Yes, I hear you." There is nobody else here.
Her brain interprets ones and zeros blue-toothed from her phone as sound, at the speed of sound, but there is no sound. There is a clear digital signal, stimulating the 22 electrodes in her cochlear implants, mimicking thousands of hair cells as if they weren't decimated before she took her first breath. As if she wasn't deaf. As if she wasn't completely silent before the surgery.
Streaming music directly from phone to electrode array, she sings, her voice the only real sound in the room.
Her brain interprets ones and zeros blue-toothed from her phone as sound, at the speed of sound, but there is no sound. There is a clear digital signal, stimulating the 22 electrodes in her cochlear implants, mimicking thousands of hair cells as if they weren't decimated before she took her first breath. As if she wasn't deaf. As if she wasn't completely silent before the surgery.
Streaming music directly from phone to electrode array, she sings, her voice the only real sound in the room.
