Silence

Absolute silence. My hearing was minimized and I could hardly hear. All I could feel was my heart thumping repeatedly in a chaotic beat against my chest.

Even writing this now, I can barely hear. Something is wrong with my left ear AGAIN.

Only at times like this do I realise how people feel when they lose their hearing. To put it in a general way, how people feel when they lose an ability they got so used to everyday.

While waiting for my airplane to arrive in KK's terminal, I seated myself behind two elderly couple on wheelchairs. Without realising much, I opened Dan Brown's Angels and Demons and was oblivious with my surrounding until an anouncement blared over the whole departure lounge.

A guy stood up and started pushing one of the disabled couple. It suddenly struck me that how life is when you cannot walk. Having a part of your body but having no control over it is devastating.

When I was in the plane, I guess the pressure was too high that my ears were both blocked. Oh well that's pretty normal. However, after several swallows of water and slightly before the plane landed, my eardrums hurt, felt like they were being pierced. Now that, was pretty abnormal.

And so back to the beginning of my story, I was surrounded by absolute silence and I prayed, hard.

I prayed that I will not lose my hearing. That I can be able to hear the lovely sounds of nature and of God's creation again.

And it dawns on me, how I treasure things only when I am about to lose them.