Small
world we live in. That's the kind of remark you get when you run into
an acquaintance somewhere unexpected or you find you know someone or
have some place in common, but what if your world was that small. Not
like Alice's after she's drunk the 'Drink Me' potion or a Borrower's
but small as in closeted. Your height stays the same, with a little give and take mornings and evenings, and your furniture stays the same scale, neither seeming too big or too small and remaining comfortable, but overnight something has affected one of your senses and so your world shrinks to a bubble, much like a snow globe or a Fortune Teller's crystal ball except everything, including you, is life-size, just contained. A circular force field that suddenly surrounds you and wherever you move to, and prevents you from normal interaction as the sound is not surround only partial.
You can hear yourself chew; you can hear thoughts being formed, but the world you live in sounds strange, as if a helium balloon, filled to capacity, has somehow got inside your eardrum, but finding it a tight fit begs to be popped with a knitting needle. However, there's no way you can get at it to relieve that pressure and it's too new to deflate, so you'll both have to sit it out.
Reduce all contact with people, as well as activities where hearing is necessary, unless the volume can be increased or your comprehensiveness doesn't need to be demonstrated and so your muffled participation won't affect the outcome. The same result will be achieved, though less enjoyed.
Any information supplied may be processed differently too. You might be unable to make out everything said, or indeed anything said, and veer off topic, without realising your blunder; your brain being quick to fill in the blanks, and only getting it right some of the time. Your responses might be curt or given in a louder pitch because you simply cannot hear what you're saying or even the tone you're saying it in, so that then you worry you're unintentionally shouting or causing offence. In most circumstances, you're not and you won't be, though you might imagine strange looks being passed.
Why hearing should affect how you read and respond to another's body language I've no idea, but it does if the condition's come on suddenly, as if the other senses haven't had time to learn how to compensate for this impairment. Like somebody whose far from fit expecting their body to adapt to strenuous exercise from the off: you want the back-up systems to kick in instantly. They do, but it's not smooth as these sensory perceptions are untrained and unused to the extra effort, just like muscles hidden under flab.
Compensations are tiring and mess with your brain. And did I mention they can make you emotional for very silly reasons. Anything that comes on top of and unrelated can set you off, because it feels like too much to contend with, in spite of you retreating to your shell. Which I know is ironic, seeing as the ear so closely resembles the homes of snails and crabs. I wonder if like a hermit crab I might find a replacement, because even they have adapted to tin cans where tourists have taken the larger shells as souvenirs. If only a interim solution was available, but at least I have the feeling this is temporary, not permanent.
You get weird thoughts with the loss of hearing in one ear. You can't not think, but your thinking is a little squiffy: sentences take more time to form and you trip over seemingly harmless words when trying to speak them. On the telephone, voices are tinny as if the calls are long-distance or the caller is holding the receiver at arm's length. And voices as if from beyond are disconcerting. But if you do happen to go out, then it's hard to hear anything: any bicycle, jogger or push-chair coming up behind or alongside you, and all passing traffic is a Whoosh! of surprise, which believe me can lead to some hairy moments.
The loss of any sense, altogether or partial, makes you feel and leaves you vulnerable because it's not always something others can see, or, if not experienced, comprehend. A small world is not a more forgiving one.
Picture credit: Conch Shell, Fine Art America.
