[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/SHpcMi3.png[/img]

For the fourth time in as many minutes the balding, bearded middle-age-by-age-twenty-seven employee tried to get the attention of Leila Webb, whose attention was on the slow rotating grill where they kept the hot dogs. It was much too early for a hot dog, but Leila watched as the questionable tubes of technically meat remained sickly heated until such a time as they were blessed with the gift of poisoning a customer’s insides. Leila wanted to be that customer. Leila had been that customer many times. Something about the grease and the eternal shine of the heat lamp made the pink cylinder taste horrible but delectable. Leila had eaten so many of those greasy disaster meat tubes that she could recall the taste, texture, and smell of them like she had perfect recall, but the reason she stared wasn’t because she so desperately wanted one despite the time of day; Leila stared because looking at the hot dogs filled her with the sort of melancholy that no one could really describe until it happened to them. It was the same look she gave the worker at the movie theater when they were making a fresh batch of popcorn. It was the same look she gave when someone opened a can of soda or when people clinked together glasses or when people winced when someone accidentally scratched the chalkboard. 

Leila Webb was probably the only person who could look at hot dogs and almost start to cry. And for the fifth time, the man behind the counter tried to get Leila’s attention, this time by slamming his hand on the counter. Leila jumped. Leila blinked. Leila turned her head towards the counter and realized in her hand was a cereal bar and a single serving carton of milk she had to pay for. [color=#15d44c]“I’m sorry?” [/color]She asked, blinking several times a second as she realized her own error. The man, whose patience was lost well before Leila stood in line, asked Leila the question she’d been asked for all of her life. 

Sometimes when Leila watched the hot dogs or the popcorn or even the trees blowing in the breeze, she wanted to ask someone an incredibly difficult question but every time she couldn’t work up the nerve. She doubted anyone would have an answer, but the closest she came to going through with asking anyway was when she was at the Sunshine Diner one weekend morning and watched as bacon fried on the pan, as eggs were flipped to make an omelet, as coffee was being poured into a mug. The waitress saw Leila looking and asked what she was staring at. [color=#15d44c]“What does it sound like?” [/color]Leila asked in turn, to a confused response from the waitress. When asked to repeat the question, Leila just shook her head and ordered a strawberry waffle with sausage links.

Some people held the belief that the worst part of Leila’s condition must have been the fear of not knowing if she’d ever hear again, but as frightening a prospect as that was, Leila was diagnosed early enough that she had the better part of her young life to adjust and adapt. Yes, the early days with the implant saw her curling up in a ball and covering her ears and shaking her head as her parents tried to calm her down, but the doctor had said there would be…complications in adjusting to her life. What she didn't know was that those complications would be her parents sounding like alien robots buzzing and crackling in her ear as they comforted her. That music would sound like a record being played in reverse and through a pitch altering program to make it sound like a droning roar or like the stinging hiss of a snake flicking its tongue directly onto her brain. She didn’t have nightmares during that period of her life because her day to day life was already a horror movie of noise.

The voices of others returned over time as the implant rallied the familiar cadence of speech to her brain. Music wasn’t as fast but it returned with a vengeance, with every song she listened to now feeling like a concert was being played directly onto her brain, every snare, every bass line, every voice digging their aural nails into her lobes. Sometimes the pitch was off, sometimes it was a little warbly, but if it meant not having to listen to the scratching recordings of hellspawn then she was more than willing to accept that trade. The day she could hear voices and songs again, Leila hugged her parents like it was Christmas morning and she just got a brand new bike. 

But it wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t until later that Leila realized she couldn’t hear little things. The things people heard every day and just paid little attention to. Ice melting in a glass. Leaves brushing against a window. The sizzle of bacon frying in a pan. Popcorn popping in a microwave. Eggs cracking. The doppler effect of a car speeding past. A pin dropping in a quiet room. So many things in her life had sound but she couldn’t hear them. Even her own fingers snapping had to be done close enough to hear ears for her to hear anything other than the muffled nothing. Her eyes could see that a snap happened, but her brain just couldn’t replicate the sound. 

How could she ask someone to describe the sound of bacon cooking? Of the wind blowing a tree? It would be like asking someone to describe the color red without using the word red. So all Leila could do when she saw something that she should hear was stare and wonder and wish.  

The man behind the counter asked Leila the question she’d been asked all of her life. And Leila replied, [color=#15d44c]“Yes, I am.”[/color]

Leaving the convenience store with her cereal bar already half eaten, Leila took a deep breath of the muggy California air and took out her phone. The wallpaper on her home screen was of her, Dani Jones, Parker Jones, and Ellie Walters posing in the middle of Webb-Heads - Dani was giving the middle finger while Leila was giving a peace sign. Just looking at the screen made Leila smile. For some people it was difficult to make friends at a place like Beverly Hills High School especially when a not insignificant amount of students dealt in friendships the way noble houses in Game of Thrones dealt in alliances,  but Leila was blessed to have friends who treated her like anyone else. When Dani called her ‘Fingers’ because of Leila’s use of ASL, it didn’t come with Dani widening her eyes and being immediately apologetic like what tended to happen any time someone made a comment about someone being deaf for not answering their phone call while Leila was in ear shot. Yeah, it was annoying being known as the deaf girl, but it was considerably less annoying than people feeling like they had to walk on eggshells around her.

Hell, Leila didn’t even know what that sounded like. 

The one benefit to Leila’s condition was that it put her above the social politics of high school. Her royal high cunt, Naomi Davis, basically informed her sycophants and wannabes that Leila was ‘off limits’ which sounded great on paper but in practice was like telling people that you weren’t allowed to make a comment about someone’s very noticeable mole. Leila knew well enough that people talked behind her back because people talked behind everyone’s back. That didn’t bother her. What bothered her was being treated like she had a contagious disease all because of being ‘off limits’. Sure, no one kicked her out of parties, but most of the time when she went there was the unmistakable feeling of knowing everyone was giving the side eye and wondering why she was there. A presence tolerated but rarely welcomed. Off limits. It was no wonder Leila was so glad to have friends like the ones on her wallpaper. 

But smiling at the sight of her friends was only part of the reason for opening her phone. During her sophomore year, a classmate asked if she was some kinda robot or cyborg like from Cyberpunk and at the time Leila just blinked and said no by slowly shaking her head. Leila still remembered the look of disappointment on the student’s face. If she was asked that now her answer might skew differently. In a way, was she not a cyborg? She had a machine that sent things to her brain on her ear, that was pretty cool, wasn’t it? And the machine did more than help her hear voices and loud sounds which she demonstrated every single day. Some kids got in trouble for walking the halls or sitting in class with headphones in. They just didn’t know the tech. 

Leila thumbed to her music folder on her phone and queued up a song. Her phone connected to her implant with Bluetooth and the sounds of music began to dance their electric signals along every surface of her brain.A concert for her ears only. Suddenly the world moved like a visualizer mixed with a prescription glasses commercial. 

[img]https://i.imgur.com/jtbTrTc.png[/img]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDkisGgNF1o]Turn Out Right[/url]

Every footstep Leila took towards school sent a little soundwave like a drumstick hitting the snare, cars drove past and their tailights left a trail straight out of Tron, the sky above her turned a brighter shade of blue - almost like she had stepped out of the real world and into a rotoscoped cartoon. She walked and her footsteps turned to rhythmic hops. Stepping forward turned her body sideways and then she danced two steps back while the grass next to her danced in the visible gust of wind that made Leila twirl, the colors of her [url=https://i.imgur.com/AIbOJA8.png]red striped shirt[/url] swirl and blend out of her, creating her own little trail of color as she half-walked, half-danced up the sidewalk. 

[color=#15d44c]“It never seems to turn out right…” [/color]Leila lip synched along to the song, her eyes closing to let the music and the familiar steps guide her forward. To passersby she probably looked ridiculous, swaying her hips, dancing, her head bopping to a song only she could hear, but Leila didn’t care. As she approached the school grounds, Leila extended her arms like an airplane and soared. The colorful winds carried her into the clouds, their pillowy cotton strands passing through her like a hug from an overstuffed plush toy. A plane flew alongside her and passengers stuck their heads out of the window to sing along with her, clapping their hands along to the gentle beat of the song’s percussion track. The sun winked at her and she waved towards that bright, friendly ball of light before beginning her final descent back down to earth. 

The song came to an end and Leila opened her eyes to find herself standing in the quad of BHHS, breathing increased like she had just come from gym class warm ups, and the inevitable rush of disappointment wafted over her. Back at school. The music video was over. As much as she would love to go through the school day listening to music on her brain, she knew it would only tank her grades even with an ASL translator dictating the lessons to her. Those blissful moments when she was dancing her way to school were addicting but like with any addiction she had to know when to dial it back. She had to know when to keep herself grounded. 

Leila looked around the quad and saw people talking, another group of people laughing, two guys giving each other a high five and an elaborate handshake; Leila saw all of these students and the only thing she heard was her own breathing. Life going on all around her and more than ever she felt like she was window shopping for something she would never truly be part of. Once again she took out her phone and once again she looked at her home screen and once again she smiled. Leila might not have had her hearing but she had something much more important. 

Maintaining the smile, Leila hit the replay button on her phone and began her swaying steps towards her homeroom, blissfully uncaring of who saw her. Let them see. Let them talk. They didn’t exist for the next three minutes. For those three minutes, the only thing that existed was Leila and her wonderful, colorful world.[/center]