HARD OF HEARING: A DIPTYCH

BY YOLANDE HOUSE

My boyfriend’s fleshy face twists with disgust. “What do you mean, you miss a lot?”

We’ve been marathoning the seven seasons of West Wing for weeks. The president and his advisors speed-walk through government offices while having heated deliberations at a pace that matches their stride, like the Gilmore Girls when Rory and Lorelai discuss global politics clutching their coffees as they traipse through the charming streets of Stars Hollow.

My boyfriend has just asked me what I thought of one of those lightning-speed conversations. I’d blinked and shook my head, then admitted I didn’t catch that part.

“They talk fast. I can keep up with most of it, but I can’t hear it all.”

His steel-blue eyes harden; he scoffs and turns his head, his shoulders shaking. He’d wanted a partner to discuss his favourite show with, and here I am, broken.

A few months before, I had a panic attack in his bedroom and asked for his support. He held my hand. When it was over, he told me he’s supposed to be the weak one. I’d cared for him during his months’ long depression, buying him groceries and cooking while he slept. It was me who stayed with him while paramedics came while he was having vomiting spells one morning, to find out it was likely the flu. But I wasn’t allowed one panic attack.

Heat beats my cheeks and I inspect my lap. My fingers coil in a vice grip.

Another boyfriend, another show. My upper body strains toward the TV. Even with the volume jacked, I don’t pick up a lot of dialogue.

“What are they saying?” I ask. He repeats what he heard. We’d turned on captions for this streaming service when we began the episode, but none were available.

I thought I’d be able to follow along if I made sure to study the facial expressions and body language of the people on the TV. I crank the volume button and the boom of aural stimuli helps. But even studying their lips, I can’t make out many exchanges and rely on images instead. Like a real-life conversation, I can pick up more if I apply my full concentration to the effort, but I estimate I’m still missing thirty percent, at least.

My sardonic comments focus on the cooking show contestant’s clothing and the tone and look of the show— this marijuana cooking show is a little too polished to be legit in my former-cannabis legalization crusader’s eyes. Like a foreign language in which I’m medium-proficient, I ride the turns and dips in dialogue and make out the general waves of the discussion, picking up enough of a through-line. But my forehead begins to pinch and I feel the beginnings of the headaches that come on when I do this for too long. Is this show worth my limited hearing energy?

I glare at the TV. “Why the heck doesn’t this show have captions?”’