When Renata was in her mid-forties, a breakthrough in neuroscience allowed for the complete restoration of sight and hearing in those that were blind and deaf from birth. Renata was over the moon at the news. Now she would finally be able to experience breathtaking sunsets and children's laughter in their true form.

The operation went off without a hitch. When Renata opened her eyes for the first time to a world full of light, she thought she had woken up in heaven. It didn't matter that she couldn't make sense of the colors and shapes flooding into her awareness. That would come later, she was told. Just the experience of seeing was more glorious than she had dared imagine.

Hearing, on the other hand, was another matter. When the coverings came off her ears, her head exploded with noise. Everything was so loud and jarring. This too would pass, she was told. The brain had to go through a reorganization phase as it learned to assimilate the deluge of new sensory input. For most people, this happened during a brief neuroplasticity window in infancy. In a middle-aged adult, the process took several months or more helped along by a cocktail of neurogenesis drugs.

Six months on, Renata was still experiencing disorientation, headaches, and nausea. She couldn't focus or concentrate. Month after month, she was told to be patient. Neuroplasticity took time.

Some things did improve. She was able to recognize most objects and also the figures of people. Yet she had difficulty differentiating shadows, causing her to walk into things or go far out of her way to avoid something that wasn't actually there. She learned to understand speech, but she couldn't interpret facial expressions or body language. The spoken word was dry and colorless, just like the braille dots she had learned all those years ago. Music was even worse. Even the pieces she had loved so much in their vibrational form seemed blaring and thin when reduced to pure sound.

All of this she could have lived with. But there was one terrible side effect she was not prepared for. She lost her proficiency with the perco-harp. The cacophony of noises and color was a never-ceasing distraction. Forget about carrying on multiple conversations; she could barely manage one. How did normal people deal with all these sensations coming at them all the time?

After two years of trying, Renata was mentally exhausted and at her wit's end. She had been unable to return to work, and, without the expressive outlet of her perco-harp, the extra time on her hands was like a prison sentence. She had trouble sleeping and would wake to the slightest noise. In the morning, she could hardly bear opening her eyes to face the world. She would huddle beneath the blankets, cocooning herself in silence and darkness.

One day, she went out for a duo-cycle ride with a friend. She had been dreading this trip and put it off as long as possible, but her friend would not be refused. Riding in an open-air vehicle had always frightened her but even more so after her senses were restored. The rush of sights was dizzying, and the roar of air terrified her. But when she put on the bulky helmet with its tinted faceplate, she felt suddenly at ease. With her vision dimmed and the sound partially muted, she could take in the world at a tolerable rate.

The moment she got home, Renata set to work on a modified version of the helmet that supported a range of settings from complete sensory deprivation to "full reality mode." Eventually, it was refined down to an AR-like visor with earpieces. In this way, she could dynamically dial up and down the amount of visual and auditory input.

With the aid of her visor, Renata was able to return to the perco-harp where she spent the majority of her time. To keep herself from detaching from the outside world entirely, she dedicated an hour each morning, afternoon, and evening to visual and auditory input.

Feeling newly hopeful, she recalled the conversation with the xeno-linguist from all those years before. She had thought he was some kind of crackpot at the time, but since then, not one, but four life-bearing planets had been discovered. While it would be another three decades before the first extraterrestrial signal would be received, there was already a sense that it was just a matter of time. A thought kept floating around in Renata's mind. If there were any deaf-mute aliens out there, how would they experience the world?