Maria Gonzalez had never liked being ignored, and it was something people had been doing to her the whole of her life. When she was a child she remembers the tiny buzz in her ears. It sounded when the adults before her open and closed their mouths. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but she heard the buzz. When she was outside it was alive with action and vibrancy, but all she heard was the distant buzz. Her parents had indicated to that it was like the sound a bee makes from a distance. That is how the doctors had explained it to them, and they in turn passed to her the news. She was what they called deaf, born with a condition they told her was a curse. But she had never known better. All the time as a baby she'd been wondering why the world was such a silent place, or why she just heard the sound that came and went. The buzz was her ear drum trying to make sense of what it was capturing but unable to send the correct signal to her brain. Instead it was jumbled and chaotic, and all she heard was this dull rumble. But when people realised that she couldn't hear like them, they started to treat her differently. They would avoid her or get agitated, gesticulating wildly or moving their mouths with odd over emphasis making it impossible to read their lips. Maria had been taught to read lips from the time she could walk and she was very proficient at it. But it was surprising how much went on that couldn't see. How some individuals you would turn their backs or look away, or hide their mouths behind their hands. When Covid came the pandemic made it almost impossible to communicate in public. Things were harder for Maria and her University lessons had stopped being as effective. Most of what she needed to do now was online tutorials and they weren't nearly as effective at teaching her. Maria's frustration and disappointment was mounting, but she'd been used to such as this all her life.
When they had invited her to the international science and technology fair being held in Madrid, Maria was suspicious. She'd been made to feel very different and any random act of kindness always got her wary. She hated pity and condescension, and that's how most new people treated her. So when receiving the invite from a bunch of tech geeks and scientists to a special presentation, she was surprised. But she was a bright and clever student, and she didn't want to miss out on an opportunity that might benefit her. Her major at Uni wasn't in science or tech, it was in communications and the Arts. It was a field that had personally impacted her life in a big way, and she wanted to contribute to making things better for people like herself. Those who were different in ways others found it hard to relate to. So Maria went to their little private demonstration with a degree of wariness and trepidation. She plucked up her courage and decided that if you don't try these experiences and opportunities as they present themselves, then you will always live in fear and thinking what if? She wasn't ever prepared to do that, she was a fighter, an enquirer and an advocate of helping oneself.
Maria Gonzalez appeared self assured and a little defiant as she stood in front of the small pannel of lab coats in front of her. The welcoming committee that greeted her at the Hall door was a bit of a surprise. She thought it was a public demonstration like the career fairs she'd attended at college in the past. Lots of stalls and people buzzing with the excitement of their own little niches. Not many bothered with her when they saw it was more difficult to win her over. This nerdherd of brains was especially curious to her, and they seemed kind of electric themselves. They were wired in a different way to the ordinary professors and teachers she knew. They spoke clearly and had a small demo video with subtitles and sign language. She was pleasant and thanked them for the invite, and watched their video. There was only her but from the look of them and the tiredness in their eyes and the sluggishness of their movements she guessed they'd been doing the same thing all morning.
The video spoke about auditory senses and how the latest technology could help in enhancing sound. Apparently they'd invented something called The Soundwave Helmet that corrected certain hearing defects by calibrating sensors in it to the same harmonics the ear receives and carries. There was a lot of techno babble about how the cardrum sets the tiny bones in the ear, called ossicles into motion. These three are named after a hammer, an anvil and a stirrup, and they further amplify sound. Then in the middle ear the Eutachian tube equalises the pressure between the air inside and outside of it. The sound waves get to the inner ear to a snail like organ called a cochlea, that's filled with a fluid that moves to the vibrations. As it does, 25,000 nerve endings are set in motion. They change it into electrical impulses that then travel along the auditory nerve to the brain. The brain then interprets those signals and that's how we hear. Apparently their helmet does away with the need for the middle ear tube and the cochlea's function. It takes sound like an eardrum in from outside and then does what the whole ear mechanism was designed to do. It carries outside sound in, through, and then feeds it direct to a helmet's sensors wired up the sections of the brain linked to the auditory nerve. They re-strimulate it somehow into a response. It was very complicated and she only half understood it because of her familiarity with terminology. They'd used a lot of big words and convoluted explanations during a series of many operations she'd had as a little girl growing up. At the end of the day she'd been given false hope before. She remained skeptical out of choice, as false hope always left her feeling crushed and upset.
However, after the video they explained to her there was no operation or need for preparation. That she'd been chosen along with others to try the thing. It could be calibrated only to a degree, but they hoped that her particular reasons for her deafness made her the ideal subject for a trial demonstration. She interpreted this as they explained into her own speak. In short, they needed to find a guinca pig it may work on to earn them the status they felt it warranted. She smiled at them. They gave her coffee and biscuits and had obviously checked her medical files and taken a lot of time and effort. Why the hell not she thought? And as she had her reward for sitting through the short programme they affixed a weird looking helmet to her head.
It reminded her of an Athenian helmet she'd seen in a local muscum once but it was all in a shiny black material. She asked them what the metal was but they said it was a polymer based bio-metal and plastic alloy enhanced substance that better carried the sensory information. She laughed at that. Better to not have asked. She forgot she was dealing with brains, and they were like her in some ways, unable to interpret their own thoughts to a way others could understand. She was similar, unable to interpret sound in a way her own thoughts could understand. She started to giggle, funny how even the non-impaired who thought themselves "whole" still had impediments that prevented them relating to the average person. She often felt we were all impaired in ways that weren't obvious. We all needed understanding and patience. They messed with the thing and applying the many sensors within it. The helmet had a visori and they insisted this was left down for when it was switched on. Apparently the whole process was quite overwhelming and it was best visual stimuli were kept to the minimum. She gulped nervously, as she didn't like being kept in the dark. Whilst they played with the iPad linked to the device and fine tuned it to her disability, Maria grew more and more anxious.
Finally they announced they were ready and Maria took a deep calming breath. As they switched the thing on, the helmet glowed red where the headphone looking apparatus was. And from the corner of the room in a lower setting than was entirely necessary, someone played some music. It came from huge speakers all around the room, with woofers and tweeters to amplify high and low frequency sounds. The controls were built into their iPad and they tinkered constantly with it. As they did so Maria felt the usual buzz at first and her heart sank. In some ways it was a relief she was unaffected, because with so many electrodes attached to her head she was worried they'd end up frying her brain and sending her home even more damaged than she already felt. They had a way of making her feel ill at case even when trying to do the opposite. She relaxed and her body lost the tension in her muscles. Oh well, nothing ventured nothing gained.
Just as she thought this something wonderful happened. There was the faintest of sounds assailing her mind. She was aware for the first time in her life, not of silence, not of a dull monotonous buzz, but of music. The sound was like a soothing balm to her whole body. It seemed to fill her up and she was so startled she sat bolt upright and started speaking to the scientists. "It's working," she said startled, " it's working...it's really working....it's...it's...marvellous!" And Maria Gonzalez, student and Communications and Arts Major broke down in tears. She was feeling the swell and surge of beautiful, clear and moving sound for the first time in her life. There were no words to try to filter, no heavy beats and deafening noise, just a gentle soothing music. "What is this?" she asked through her overwhelming ecstasy. Then someone spoke into a microphone very gently. "Beethoven," they replied and Maria jumped out of her skin. It was the first. human voice she'd ever heard. Though she couldn't grasp the words or their meaning yet, there was no doubt it was distinctly different to the music. Maria was laughing and crying all at once. She was hearing and it was wonderful. She was doing what other people took for granted and it was glorious. She'd been given the chance to experience an ordinary part of life people took as a given. Her heart was soaring, her mind racing and for the first time in a long time she had hope. They'd given her hope. And no amount of thank you could embody the empowerment they were providing her. And the tears kept falling.
