What if you woke up one morning, and one of your senses was just...gone?

We had a writing prompt today, and I chose that question; just a little story I came up with.

It was just another normal Tuesday, I woke up at the usual time of 5:25 to a blinking alarm clock, sore muscles, and a nagging headache as I remembered I'd crawled into bed at midnight the night before because of that ridiculous 5-page paper due first period today...damn my procrastinating tendencies. I silently rolled out of bed and, shutting off the alarm, went to look at myself in the mirror. I sighed a small breath at the sight of my new mohawk and the lovely bags under my eyes that so distinguished my eyes from the rest of my face. Shaking my head, I pulled out the drawers of my wooden dresser noiselessly. I shrugged  Huh, I thought to myself, usually that squeaks like a mouse...George must have fixed it earlier last night. I shrugged and pulled off the worn nightshirt I was wearing and threw it into the hamper. Picking my way through my drawers for my newish tye dye sweatshirt, I noticed things were awfully quiet this morning. Everyone must still be asleep, I guessed. Shimmying into my favorite pair of jeans, I opened up my bedroom door and hit my little brother square in the face. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, are you all right?" I cried, touching the reddish mark on his forehead. He pushed me away and stormed into the bathroom, gently pulling the door shut behind him. "Giving me the silent treatment, eh? At least you didn't slam the door, the whole house would have woken up!" I grumbled after him. The door opened and his face was scrunched up with anger, his teeth grinding together like he was trying to find something other than a grimace to speak with, but he shut the door again before I heard him say anything. "Not man enough to talk to me, are you? Suit yourself!" I called. At that, the door opened again, but this time his face showed surprise. His lips started moving and his eyebrows were raised quizzically but he wasn't making any noise at all. He gestured to the door and looked back at my confused expression with horror. Suddenly he grabbed my face and started breathing hard on me, his eyes wild with fear. "What are you doing?!" I yelled and pushed him off of me. But then I stopped. I didn't hear myself yell. I started talking again, but no noise came out. I looked up at my brother and he was banging on our parents' bedroom door hard, and his mouth was wide and wild. My mother opened the door, making faces at my brother until he started gesturing at me, when her expression went from anger to her own horror, matching ours. She started snapping her fingers in front of my eyes, her lips forming my name, but I shook my head and felt the tears spill over my cheeks as I raised my face to hers and told her, "Mom...I can't hear you." 

Author's Note

I got some positive feedback on it, but the major thing was that if this really happened and someone did lose their hearing, it's true that they would notice it right away. I didn't think about that at first because I was focusing more on how she doesn't really pay attention, or it was early in the morning, or something. But truthfully there are a lot of subtle noises I'd notice when first waking up, like the hum of my overhead fan, or the squeak of my bed when I roll over, or even just my breath. So yeah. This was just something I simply threw together in a half an hour.

Reviews

[Danielle]

I think this is a nice story and I probably would have wrote it the same way. Perhaps you should add more and see what you come up with next.

[Patrick B]

Love this!