Somewhat Silent

Rain falls, rushing noisily in streams that the cars splash through with a rushing sound of tires on wet pavement, and the roar of an engine angry at the wetness of the environment. A the waterfall of water goes splashing up in sheets onto the sidewalks, crashing down like an ocean wave three times its size. People’s boots make tiny squeaking sounds, and the fabric of their umbrellas rustles in the wind.

I never realized before my hearing aids the cacophony that rain makes, and still hate to hear it. Instead, I slip my hearing aids out to hear the muted etchings of the rain that I grew up with. The soft high sound of it scraping against the plastic of my raincoat hood, and the light hissing beneath the cars, always with a splashing rushing sound as it passes by its closest point to me. The footsteps disappear, and people move like ghosts through the mist that always rises above the ground in Manhattan as cold rain hits hot pavement. The water falls inside my ears, and drips down my face like a shower, I’m oblivious to the cold and to the wet, as if the absense of the sounds of the rain ease its cutting impact.

I splash through puddles, stepping stronger to send the jets of water further, my mind’s eye hears it as it arcs through the air and splashes onto the pavement around it.

Strangers stare at me, confused, from under their umbrellas.

I laugh that silent laugh I have, and dance about in the rain, a million quiet muted sounds swirling around me like all the raindrops, among the crowd of the city, but as private as a shower, because somehow not hearing those that surround me makes it as if they do not exist.