There is a voice.

It lurks behind me, not making a sound.

But I can hear it.

~

Just before I was born, God’s finger must have slipped. Out I came, a wet, red, wiggling baby, wailing like a scalded cat and unable to hear the groans of my mother or the hushed whispers of the nurses. Doctors shrugged their shoulders and expressed their apologies when my parents demanded an explanation as I grew older. I was defective, that’s all. My ears hadn’t been formed properly, and without words to hear, I had no words to say. My hands did the talking, and my eyes learned to listen as they watched my parents’ lips and fingers.

As I grew older, I became aware of something behind my mother’s shoulder. A voice: petulant, cross, frowning a second before she grew angry, rolling its eyes a moment before she did herself.

I asked my mother once why her voice is almost always impatient and sarcastic, while my father’s does almost nothing other than stare blankly around. I was only five then, and my mother snapped that I shouldn’t play such games, while her voice gave me an evil look and ducked behind her neck.  

It’s hiding, I signed.

I am not, the voice sneered, popping back to its former position, while my mother said at the same time, “Go play, Asher Lee.”

I went.

I remember times standing with my back toward a mirror, twisting around to see my own voice. I never could, and though I sometimes heard the voices’ words as they talked to own another, I never heard anything but silence from behind me.

I didn’t understand why my parents never seemed to notice to the voices behind them. They spoke often enough, not much to each other, but whispering in my parents’ ears, things about me, about their spouse, about their other children. I used to try conversing with them, thinking if I showed myself in a more favorable light, they would stop giving bits of impatience to my mother to shower on me.

But the voices don’t like me. Maybe that’s why the people possessing them don’t either, instead of the other way around. My father avoids me, probably because his voice is too frightened of my mother’s to do anything but scuttle out of sight when I glance its way. My mother tolerates me from the outside, but I can see her thoughts reflected on her voice, which are much the same as they were when I was born, I’m sure. I can imagine her peering over the crib, her silent companion peering over as well, both wondering how a new baby could have so much hair. Gray-brown hair, like the ashes of a dying fire, face like Snow White, blank, dark eyes staring over my mother’s shoulder at the voice. Asher, it suggested in my mother’s ear, gazing back at me. Made from ashes, born into a world of silence, because my ears don’t understand the concept of translating sound waves into words.

Can’t I have just one friend? A voice, someone to whisper in my ear. I am going deaf in my mind as well as my ears, and no one will talk to me. The voices could if they wanted to, but they prefer glaring. And I am alone. It’s like I’m disappearing. I spend most of my time sitting in the corner of my sister’s room, the dresser pressed on one side, the trashcan perched in front, my head bowed and my arms clasped around my knees. I sometimes wonder if my family forgets I am here. It’s too quiet, and I have to leave after a while, or something will come and sit behind my shoulder, rest its cold fingers on my neck, and whisper things so low I can’t make them out.

Outside, there are people, and it’s harder to disappear, so I walk up on my silent feet and stand watching them.

“Hey Asher,” a kid from next door will say, “Wanna play hide-and-seek?” Then he’ll put his hand over his mouth, and I’ll see his cheeks move as he says something else to his buddies.

I know I shouldn’t join. He’s already picking on me. But I do anyway, and they make me “It” and I stand by a tree and count off in my head. When I turn around, they’ll be standing there, pretending to be surprised.

“Aren’t you going to count?”

“Can’t just decide that our time is up without telling us, deafy.”

“C’mon, Asher, even babies can count to ten.”

I turn around again, this time holding my hand out to the side as I sign, one, two, three--I stumble as their hands push my shoulders from behind.

“No, no, no! That’s not fair to blind people--they can’t see your finger-waving, Asher.”

“You should be consid’rate to people’s disabilities, Asher.”

You said--

“Mom says it’s rude to point to people.”

“Yeah, and besides, I’m blind, see?” Hands over eyes, mouth open, he stumbles around in a circle, whacks into his friends, and falls in a heap.

“No, no, I’m blind! And my mouth doesn’t work, see? It hangs open, like Asher’s.” Stumble, gaping mouth, stupid expression, hands flipping through the air like a flock of sleepy sparrows.  Want, climb, food, kill, he signs without knowing.

You look like drunk chickens, I say, but they don’t hear.

“Hey, hey, Asher, you shouldn’t ignore people when they’re talking to you. We’re being nice, see?” The boy, leering face, fingers wiggling to get my attention. “Betcha not many people talk to you, yeah? Bet you’d be in your room all alone without us keeping you comp’ny, yeah?”

I hesitate. Yeah.

The boy’s voices almost never talk to me. All they ever want to say comes out of their person’s mouths, so they only smirk at me, riding the shoulders, gripping the dirty shirts to stay aloft. They only throw in the occasional curse word, which I don’t understand until I repeat their gestures in the house, and get locked in my room for a day. But the boys said it, I sign, standing just inside the doorway, gripping the edge of the door frame with one hand. Or they would say it, if they wouldn’t get in trouble.

But my mom has already pried up my fingers and tossed my hand from her, and she doesn’t notice my signs. “Go inside, Asher.”

Just before the door shuts, I see her put her hand over her mouth and turn to my father. I know they’re talking about me. They always cover their mouths when they do. I can guess what they’re saying, though, by the way their voices are looking at me.

Why is she like this?

We’re stuck with an idiot child.

A retard.

Then the door closes, and I’m alone again in my room. I can never disappear in my empty room, with its bare floor and quiet walls, and the voice finds me easily. Because I do have a voice, I realize, even if I can’t hear it. No one else can hear it either. It’s like me.

I’m hunched in a corner, and I sign into the air in front of me. You’re here, too.

It doesn’t answer.

It doesn’t need to.