Modified Radical Mastoidectomy.

Trying saying that with a mouth full of Maltesers after five pints of vodka.  Bet you can't.

My ears are knackered.  That's the deal.  A defect from when I was born that meant the canals joining all my nasally-ear bits together decided they didn't want to grow past me being 3 years old.

This will sort it all out.  After a life of infections and partial hearing, I'll have a little less hearing but no infections.  Well, half the time I don't particularly want to hear what people say anyway.  I much prefer to be lost in my books.  Escaping to worlds and lives far removed from my humdrum existence.

Sometimes I wish I could sail along the canals that I'm having repaired, perhaps on a Venetian gondola - they do, after all, feel like they're full of water half the time.

I'm going down to theatre in a few minutes.  They're coming to take me away, ha-ha.  The line will be going in and I'll be off to sleepy-byes...

* * *

Wha...?  Where...?

Oh.  That's right.  I'm in hospital.  There's a huge pressure on my head.  Bandages are wrapped around me.  They're covering my eyes too.  I was expecting some padding over my ears, but not this.  Surely it's overkill?  I panic for a moment, but soothing hands pat my own, stroke my arms.

Calm down, they're reassuring me.  It's ok.

I suppose it is.  I should have asked about it, really.  Not assumed.  Saying that, maybe they should have told me.  Either way, it is too late now.  I am a mummy - or at least my head is.  Part of the walking dead.  Ancient beyond words and twice as crumbly.

Well, I can't see so at least I can entertain myself with silly thoughts.  I picture myself walking around, arms outstretched, groaning - just my head swathed but the rest of my body joining in the fun.

I can't hear anything.  I expected that.  At first, at least.  There would be swelling, internally and externally.  It would be a day or two before sounds would seep in.  But the pain and the headaches and the constant infections would be gone.

I could handle a couple of days of deafness for that.

It's not fun when you're being fed and you can neither see nor hear.  The nurse's fingers (I assume it's a nurse and not some random person stalking the halls of the hospital shovelling food into patients mouths) are tapping my mouth for me to open it for the spoon.  I don't like tomato soup and I've tried to say as much.  They're still feeding it to me, though.  I feel like a baby being weaned.

Maybe I am.  Just missing the nappy.

* * *

The bandages are coming off.  Finally.  I didn't expect it to take three days but perhaps I haven't healed as fast as they'd hoped.  I think it's been three days, anyway.  I've slept at odd times.  When you're surrounded by the night, it's hard to know when it's actually day.

I feel like I've been carrying someone on my shoulder for too long, and they've just climbed down.  As the bandages come off, I feel like I'm floating.  I'm levitating off the bed and they'd best watch out before I drift out of the window.

I know to be careful.  Three days of darkness means I must take it slowly opening my eyes.  I do.  Easy does it.  A crack at first.  Blinking.  Oh, it hurts.  Even though it appears to be evening, it's a vast contrast to blindness.  Still, it's good to be able to see again.

Blurry shapes.  Figures.  A face, I think.  Yes.  A face, closing in.  Smiling.  The doctor.  My vision is clearing.  That's better.

I smile back.

The doctor's mouth is moving, but I can't hear anything.  Perhaps I still have padding over my ears.  I can still feel the bandages around my face, even though they're not there.  I reach up to my ears.

Nothing there.

I frown.  I should be able to hear something, shouldn't I?  Not as much, I know, but something?

I say that I can't hear anything.  I don't know if I shout it or not.  Tough if I do, really.  Even my own voice betrays me - it isn't echoing inside my head.  Has the silence snatched it away?  Eloped in the night for a frantic shotgun wedding at Gretna Green?  Or Vegas if they can afford the flights?

The doctor is frowning.  He says something to me.  I have no idea what and he seems not to realise that I need to be able to hear to be able to hear him.  He leaves the room.  I assume he is going to investigate, though my ears are in here, with me.  Attached to my head as they always have been.

I'm ok.  No need to panic.  Maybe the swelling is still too much.  The sounds can't squeeze through the gap to play tom-tom on my inner ear.

A whisper.  I'm sure I hear a whisper.

I turn my head.  It is coming from my left.  There's nothing there.  Only the shadows as the light fades.  There is only the lamp above my bed to shed any light in the room.  The door is closed and lets in barely a glimmer through the frosted glass.

My imagination is playing tricks on me.  I want to hear so much, I'm having phantom sounds, much like if I'd lost a limb.  My attention returns to the door.  The doctor will be back in a moment.

Movement.  Like a slither.  A smooth sound.  On the floor.  I lean over, half expecting to see snakes crawling out from beneath my bed.  There is nothing.  Only a deepening darkness.

I cough, deliberately, to see if any part of it manages to invade my head and prove to myself that I am not hearing things.

Perhaps I'm mute too.  I've been blind and deaf, so third time is the charm.

But I know I'm not.  I can feel the vibration of my voice in my throat.  I know it is there, hanging in the air before my face, pulling a moony at me.

The whisper again.  It's on the left.  No the right.  Directly in front of me.

But nothing is there.  I can see only shadows.

Off to one side is the television.  It's on a long arm that allows it to be pulled over the bed.  I do so and press the button to switch it on.  After a brief advertisement encouraging me to buy credit to call the outside world or add more channels, a program appears.  It's a soap.  I don't watch soap operas, feeling that life is easily more entertaining in all its many colours.  I leave it, though.  It sheds a little luminosity.  There's sound, of course, but it is currently redundant.

The television is actually making me more nervous.  The flickering glow is causing the shadows to dance on the periphery of my vision.

Again I hear the whisper.  It's not in my head.  I know it's not.  It's real.  The mouths on the actors move, but nothing is coming out.  I press the Volume Up button.  Still, an absence of noise.

Except for that whisper.

And the slither.

My heart leaps as the door opens and the doctor returns.  He's holding a folder.  My notes.  He says something to me again then finally gets the point when I shake my head.

He pulls out a pen and writes on the folder, showing it to me.

"Not sure of problem.  Should have worked.  Probably swelling.  Will fix.  Don't worry"

The whisper.  Not just an indistinct murmur now.

<worry... worryworryworry...>

It is coming from everywhere.  Where there are shadows there is sound.  Where there is light, only silence.

I take his hand, gripping the wrist.

Let me out, I plead.  I can hear sounds.  Not voices, just... sounds.

He nods and smiles.  A thumbs up.  Then he leaves.

NO!  Not those sounds!  Come back!

<back.... come back...>

A pause.  I stare into the shadows.  They stare back at me.

<worry..........>