The Gift

    It was quiet. Ella loved quiet when the only sound was the tinnitus in her ears--the wavering drone that was always with her, annoying when the volume was too high, distracting when she allowed herself to be aware of the brain music, conscious of the prickly sounds that accompanied her everywhere.

~

    She had thought it was normal, assumed everybody had a constant scramble of sound in their head and was surprised when Mary Sue stared at her wide-eyed when Ella asked her what kind of noises were in her head, "You know the tinkling, bubbling stuff in your brain."

    "What!" Mary Sue had hissed, too loudly, too obviously, right there in the recess line where, luckily, a lot of other kids were still talking, laughing, punching each other.

    "You don't have them?" Ella whispered.

    Mary Sue, her best friend in life, her constant companion, snorted her high pitched laugh, and shouted the predictable, "YOU'RE CRAZY!"

    Ella laughed too, too quickly, too loudly, and never again mentioned the breathy, crinkly sonata that daily...and nightly...inhabited her skull.

~

    Then, years later, when Google, with its pathways to all knowledge, emerged, Ella learned the word tinnitus, even casually mentioned it once or twice and still got the same response: "So you're hearing voices...."

    No. 

    That wasn't it. 

    But it was hers and became her secret, her carefully held secret, a gift she embraced, an inner orchestra of sound, scratchy the first thing in the morning, then shifting to gentle merriment by noon, sometimes verging on hysteria on a hot day, but, by evening, the soothing melody of a cool breeze, a hymn to life, to joy, even love.

    It was enough.

    Not every gift has to be shared.