There once was a boy with above average hearing. He could hear his mother calling from far away – much further than the other children (or maybe they DID hear their mothers, but pretended not to). He was never really sure if he had a special ability to hear, or perhaps it was all that time he spent practicing hearing. In any event, he could hear, and he loved to listen.
He listened to the sounds of the birds in the tree outside his window, music from the house across the street, and the magical river than ran through the woods at the end of the block. He also noticed babies crying in the grocery store – not every sound was pleasant. But he took it all in, reflecting on the beauty of each sound on its own as well as part of the great symphony.
He would follow some of these sounds – down the street, across town, sometimes all the way into the country. Neighbors began to think he might be a little crazy. “We all hear those sounds sometimes, but you don’t see the rest of us on wild goose chases, do you?” No, he didn’t. He didn’t really understand WHY other people didn’t love the sounds as much, why they would ignore or tune out so much beauty. But he didn’t mind. He was happy.
And there were others who DID appreciate these sounds. Some just smiled as he passed by, happy to see him follow his ears. There were also those who he helped to hear those sounds too – sometimes for the first time, sometimes giving them a new appreciation for the “noises” they heard but seldom paid attention to.
After a while, however, the sounds all began to run together. It was too much for the boy, and the beauty was gone. What had happened? When had it happened? Hard to say, but he had lost the song. It was just noise. What to do?
The boy plugged his ears. “If I can’t hear the sound, I don’t want to hear!” And he was surrounded by silence. The quiet was soothing. He started remembering things, people, places – all that he had encountered while listening to the sounds. Good memories, bad memories – they all came flooding back. And he started to remember the individual sounds and what had attracted him to each. He remembered tinkling bells and toes tapping and street sweepers and bullfrogs.
Somehow, in the midst of the silence, he was hearing again.
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