My husband rubs his back against the park bench, decompresses after cramped confinement in the sound-proof booth. I study the lines of his audiogram, spikes like cloud-to-ground lightning, plunging deep into the valley of severe hearing loss.

The young Audiologist had joked, fear no evil. We can amplify the speech frequencies. He will hear take out the garbage and what’s in the mail. But the low, subtle sounds…? —she had looked apologetic. I read the diagnosis at the bottom of the graph. Sensorineural. Noise Induced. Permanent.

Who or what did my husband this evil? The whoosh and grind of a six-lane nation, the shrill whine of planes overhead, the aftershock of long-ago concerts, hard rock reverberating in the blood? Or was it cheapskate employers supplying bum earplugs, the eighth nerve numbed, defenseless against unwavering waves of industrial hum?

A breeze ripples the duckweeded-holding pond, which is large enough to trick waterfowl into thinking it’s a lake. From the weeping willow above the bench, I hear the liquid trill of a redwing blackbird. Before thinking, I ask my husband if he heard. He closes his eyes as if searching the archive of his inner ear. No, but I remember it.

How long, I wonder, can the coo of doves, the whinny of waking owls, the wing flaps of cranes in V-formation, live in auditory memory? Will bird book depictions, the onomatopoeia of printed words stop the forgetting? Audubon describes tern calls as beach music, a mix of whistling suweees and descending whoo-hurrs. Will he feel dispossessed when he holds to his ear, a shell with the topography of the human cochlea, failing to hear the cool, aqua sound of the sea? When the hawk circles above the glen, will he perceive the sudden hush, like the five o’clock quiet that fills a cathedral closed to visitors?

A wood duck lands in the weeds, announces his arrival with quavering notes. This time I only point, and he looks, smiles, looks away. He had waited in the car while I asked the Audiologist probing questions about noise induced loss. Did you know, she commented, that eighty-year-olds living on the Serengeti have the hearing of our western world’s heathiest five-year-olds?

My husband opens his Subway sandwich, offers me the cookie, but I pick up my phone instead, read the latest posts on a dreary site called Audiometry Today. Then, I turn to videos of Tanzania’s savannah, learn that this region is the original cradle of human occupation, home of the pasturing Maasai tribe; every member, I imagine, blessed with perfect hearing, cradle to grave. I read out loud to him: Over forty species of animals use this ancient corridor to Lake Victoria. Maasai tribal music is entirely vocal—a chorus sings harmonic praise to a God who makes rain, fine grass, and strong cows. Again, a wan smile. He crumples the food wrapper, tosses it in the trash. Are you ready to leave?

Later that evening, I escape the blaring TV, retreat to my bedroom nook. The Audiologist assured us that he will soon hear the news at normal volume. It is the otherworldly sounds of comfort, of spirit, that he will miss, the aromatic hiss of pine knot campfires, rumbles of thunder reassuringly distant, as the weatherman promised, the lonely notes of Taps, played to the rhythm of sunset.

When I finally sleep, I dream of a mother on the Serengeti, humming a lullaby to her baby. The child becomes my husband, ages eight decades before I wake. He holds his own grandbaby, sings from memory the legacy melody, every note lilting, pitch-perfect. When he hears the background swell of sweet rain beginning, he smiles for real, every drop an answered prayer.

 

Claire Massey teaches creative writing through the Center for Lifelong Learning. Formerly prose editor for the Emerald Coast Review, her work appears in over fifty venues for the literary arts. She is author of Driver Side Window: Poems & Prose and co-author of the forthcoming, Awake in the Sacred Night.