The Reluctant Memoirist: Breaking the silence on deaf identity
View/ Open
Author(s)
McDonald, Donna
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2011
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
She leaned across the picnic hamper, reaching out for my hearing aid in my open-palmed hand. I leaned back, batting her hand away from mine. The glare of the summer sun blinded me and I struck empty air. She was quick. Her tendril-fingers seized the beige seashell curve of my hearing aid and she lifted the cargo of sound towards her eyes. She peered at the empty battery-cage, flicking it open and shut as if it was a cigarette lighter, as if she could spark hearing-life into this trick of plastic and metal that held no meaning outside of my ear. I shouted, 'Don't do that!' Clenching my fist around the new battery I had been ...
View more >She leaned across the picnic hamper, reaching out for my hearing aid in my open-palmed hand. I leaned back, batting her hand away from mine. The glare of the summer sun blinded me and I struck empty air. She was quick. Her tendril-fingers seized the beige seashell curve of my hearing aid and she lifted the cargo of sound towards her eyes. She peered at the empty battery-cage, flicking it open and shut as if it was a cigarette lighter, as if she could spark hearing-life into this trick of plastic and metal that held no meaning outside of my ear. I shouted, 'Don't do that!' Clenching my fist around the new battery I had been about to insert into my hearing aid, I imagined it speeding like a bullet towards her heart.
View less >
View more >She leaned across the picnic hamper, reaching out for my hearing aid in my open-palmed hand. I leaned back, batting her hand away from mine. The glare of the summer sun blinded me and I struck empty air. She was quick. Her tendril-fingers seized the beige seashell curve of my hearing aid and she lifted the cargo of sound towards her eyes. She peered at the empty battery-cage, flicking it open and shut as if it was a cigarette lighter, as if she could spark hearing-life into this trick of plastic and metal that held no meaning outside of my ear. I shouted, 'Don't do that!' Clenching my fist around the new battery I had been about to insert into my hearing aid, I imagined it speeding like a bullet towards her heart.
View less >
Journal Title
Griffith Review
Volume
33
Copyright Statement
© 2011 Griffith University & the Author. The attached file is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. For information about this journal please refer to the journal’s website or contact the author
Subject
Studies in Human Society not elsewhere classified