Languages were the first barriers we built. Before fences, sticks, colonizers, and colonee’, it became our first divide; the first human intervention. People from different lands spoke words differently. Their laughs were a variant of ours. Their sentences sometimes spoke from tail to head, or maybe it was ours that sang upside down. I couldn’t understand their jokes, nor could they my thoughts. What would we do? What will we become? Oh, words, you five-letter minx, such vibrant evolutions you take. But then again… the language I speak doesn’t have your fickle presence. I wonder how you sound. I wonder what they’re saying. Will they ever understand my language? My beautiful language of silence.
I often get jealous of how many words everyone gets to hear. It’s unfair that I get only one. The leaves of Mrs. Savithri’s orchard spoke to me the same words as my mother’s The stray dogs of Banglore spoke in the same tone as Mr. Abhay’s cat. Even Mrs. Savitri and Mr. Abhay spoke to each other, and me, with a singular vocabulary. Everyone and everything were so utterly different, yet uniquely similar to my flightless ears.
“Sarah, in a way, you’re blessed with a gift,” Fatima told me one quiet day. Her silence was my favourite. Even after three years, seeing her stumble for words with her fingers was cute. When she forgets how “F” is shown, her ‘food’ becomes ‘wood’. I would then do my dances to develop a clever joke at her expense. She would laugh every single time. Yet on that day, she swooshed her hands perfectly. “You can see the world as beautiful as it is. Through your ears, everyone and everything are the same. I wish… all of us could see such a unified world through our senses too.” Her lips chuckled without disturbing the air. “I wish I could.” She sighed. Why would she say that? I didn’t understand at that time. It became another mystery to decipher; for I was the deaf Sherlock Holmes, with her invisible Watson’s memoir. My detective hat was crooked, and my crimes-to-solve were plain. For my Moriarty was the world; to decipher and relish it, I must strive.
Yet, I wonder… How much more beauty can the world hide from me? For, there is plenty for myself to see already. The blushing trees that vibrate in a melodious green. The rose orchard, which smelt like the most vivid rainbows. The touches of lady-silk that soothed my negligible existence were only shy of my mother’s gentle caress. And the earthy flavour of petrichor that fills my heart with a joy still undeciphered — when will it come next? What vision will it bring forth? And of course there were my allies, those who wander the world with me, the 7 billion Sherlock’s without their own crooked hats. Yet, I can’t help but wonder, what sights are they all hiding from my unforgiving pair of ears? What noises did people make that I couldn’t fathom or understand?
“Sometimes, we can’t hear people even when they talk, Sarah. In those moments, we become the same as you,” Fatima whispered to me one day. Her hands looked tired. The purple nail polish was crafting skin-coloured pillars. Her eyes jumped from face to face as we sat in the silent metropolis. “Silence, sometimes is the superior choice,” she added.
“Why?” I gestured. Fatima smiled at me as if she were looking at a fawn from her Abbu’s farm. I was her little baby, according to confession.
“Because people don’t always say what they mean… nor mean what they say.” She sighed. Her eyes were getting darker circles every day. I even suggested taking time off from her hectic schedule. Until one day, I woke up in the middle of the night to see her room slanted open.
“Fatima…” I spoke in a language I thought she would speak.
Up rose a dark figure with her shape, and smiled. “Why are you up this late?” Her eyes were red and compressed. The smell of salty tears rose from her cheeks.
“Are you crying? What happened? Tell me?” I rushed. It must have looked like a folk dancer’s hand movement at times.
Fatima embraced my cheeks and went back. “I just woke up because dust fell in my eyes,” she said, and vanished into the night. Yet… for all the questions I had in this world, I couldn’t muster to ask, “Why is your nose red in colour?”
Fatima remained the same. Her silent laughs were still my favourite. There was a world that only she and I could see together. With her on my shoulder, I felt invincible. All the dangers I couldn’t fathom hearing about, she protected me from. All the sights she wanted me to see, I gathered with all my heart to glee. We digested the roadside delights that sang the vivid vibrancies of Indian spices; and inhaled the sugary delights that even my deaf ears knew were a sin to indulge. Fatima’s warm hugs made the cold days worth surviving and the hot days a little comforting. Yet I wondered… as I always did; what beautiful words do her gentle lips speak?
“You don’t need to worry about that at all!” Fatima cried. “No matter what I sound like, you’ll find me lovely!” she laughed. The pigeons scattered around the park rested, waiting to hear her silent songs. I also joined as a pigeon born without wings. There she was, right in front of us. She had thick black hair, painted on its tail with a hue of fading brown. Wearing any and every dress to utter perfection; no groove nor gloat escaped her azure eyes. Her skin was the colour of freshly harvested wheat. Unprocessed, pure, and glowing. Her laughs were melodious enough to be broadcast. How do I know? The pigeons around me cooed and jumped to her tune. And when the clock hits 6:37, as the sun descends to its nightly duties, it paints a picture in Fatima’s eyes. The iridescent clouds reflected within her azure circles, creating a universe enveloped in another. An interstellar wonder. I smiled. What could I even miss from this world? So what if I am a flightless pigeon? The beauty of this world… sat beside me.
Or so I thought.
I was reminded of being powerless.
I yearned for wings.
There was a flavour of sense I was numb against.
And the price of it all… Cruel.
On one silent night, she left without a goodbye to spare.
“FATIMAAAA!!” I wished I could cry. What I liberated would have sounded like the dying cries of a lamb to be sacrificed. One silent night later, my senses were barbarically ravished. As I saw Fatima’s white-wrapped bodice lying cold in front of me, I lost the ability to see anything else. Through clouded raindrops, my eyes strained to see the once beauty of the world. My skin couldn’t even feel the frigid, sharp air that everyone was prickled by. My nose tried to find the scent of lavender and sandal, that Fatima used to wear. My tongue forgot it existed. I was no longer the lucky one. I was just a cursed pigeon born without wings.
“How could someone so joyous, take her life so easily?” I read from a wandering lip.
What is easy about taking one’s own life? What is easy about leaving the scent of unadulterated pain?
Many lips vibrated around her forever silent voice. No doubt, saying their good thoughts, while all of them shunned her out of joy, alive. Many more came through the doors, claiming to be family that once claimed Fatima’s inexistence. The so-called society also joined; the one that shamed her for being who she is, claimed to have never done so. Even he came… after everything he did to my Fatima. All the culprits in her death stood before me. In the same room as me. Speaking the silent words that only her beautiful lips could utter.
“Through your ears, everyone and everything are the same.” She was wrong. How could it even be considerable? In what universe… what analogy, could they be the same as my dear Fatima. No! Their silence is different from hers. Hers… was beautiful. Hers… was hers. Hers… was the same.
No matter how hard I tried, they all sounded the same to me. The evil and my Fatima. They all spoke the same words. The cursed language of silence. Their lips all moved in familiar fashion. Their voices echoed the same notes as Fatima’s. The flightless pigeon looked all around. For, if there was no Fatima,to whom should she look Her winged companions flew far away, leaving her wildly astray. Amidst the wild metropolis, she stood, with the eyes of murderous crows piercing her nimble feathers.
There they all stood, judging me, as I did myself. The culprits… they were not. For there was but one sinner in that sense-droughted room. It was the flightless pigeon that couldn’t hear Fatima’s woes. All those nights in which she slept soundly, she couldn’t hear the crying plea from the room beside. My language… My curse… My division — they killed Fatima.
“If only I could hear you…” I cried.
Fatima’s lips cruelly didn’t reply.
