Silent Suffering:

My ears have been ringing.

It's not anything serious or even overly concerning. Not to the point where I had to be diagnosed with tinnitus or anything else of the sort. It happens very very rarely and always seems to have a reasonable explanation behind it.

Like I'll feel my ears ringing one second and the next I'd be on the pavement ground of my school, taken out by a stray basketball. And quite easily the memory or whatever could have gotten mixed up when it came to the order in which the events took place. I mean I did hit my head pretty hard on the ground that one time. I'd be surprised if they weren't ringing.

Other times I just barely catch this ringing are also an instance where I get hurt or end up in some kind of pain.  It usually lasts longer and gets louder the more severely I get physically hurt. It was never blatantly evident though, that it was there before I was in harm's way.

I'd told my parents when I got slightly anxious at its repeated occurrences and they'd taken me to get it checked out. Of course, there was nothing actually wrong with my hearing at all. They chalked it up to some kind of inward reflex of mine and suggested some pills and over the counter medication if I was up to it.

Still, it was basically not even there. Only really even catching my attention when I stupidly stubbed my toe hard or tripped and fell.

It was nothing I told myself. And even if it was something, it didn't harm me, never. Warn me perhaps but it wasn't what put me in harms way at all it was myself and my dumb mistakes and slip-ups.

It was never bothersome or uncanny at all.... At least not until I started driving and got into my first car crash.

It was a Saturday night and I was pulling out of the plaza close to my house because I was still too much of a pussy at driving to go anywhere too far. The roads were pretty clear and I felt relaxed in the driver's seat, I'd gotten comfortable driving on my own.

Especially with how cool the breeze was through my window and the street lights casting a nice glow down the road. I switched on the radio to compliment the atmosphere.

I flipped through the stations quickly trying to get to my favourite (super underrated) one.

For some reason my radio was being super staticky tonight of all nights so I tried going back a few stations to some of the more local ones but the buzzing only steadily intensified.

Well that was annoying. Actually the noise was turning into more of a high-pitched hum. Or a screech.

No, wait...

And suddenly it was blaring through my ears, loud and as clean as a whistle. It physically hurt. I switched off the radio immediately but the sound didn't go away, just further piercing into my brain.

It was too much. I drove off the road and lost complete control of the car. I ended up crashing pretty bad and ended up with a bunch of broken bones, stayed in the hospital for about a month.

The whole time in the hospital I felt something amiss, I felt mad at myself and my mind for losing grip like that. I knew the source of my pain that night and truthfully felt kind of spiteful towards it but I still couldn't bring myself to hate it.

Because once again it wasn't wrong, I had gotten badly hurt that night. But wasn't that warning the very cause of my pain that night? Or at least what led to it?

I could never say for sure.

Now, here I am 15 years later locked up in my room crying through that awful ringing.

It's loud and achingly gruesome. It feels like my head's splitting and I can't even think. All I can do is cry and sob like an infant. All I can feel is the looped chime.

It's like your ears popping on a plane if I had to make a connection about it. Something that makes you want to squirm but also stay grounded for the sake of yourself.

After all, the one thing that bothered me more than the ringing was what was to come. What awful horrifying, dragged out pain was to follow this hell siren.

My weak sense of time told me it it had been at least half an hour since it started. And yet somehow I was even more afraid of it coming to and end.

With weak arms I pushed myself upwards, crawling towards my apartment door. I wimphered at the rattling headache weighing me down as I tried to stand up against the door slowly.

With shaky fingers and sweaty palms I struggled with the chain lock. It was the least I could do to protect myself. I'd already spent the time I had before trying to seal my small window as best as I could, pushing my wardrobe towards it and weighing it down.

It was feeble and hardly subdued my paranoia in this state but it was with a shot.

I slouched against the door letting myself fall to the ground, ears still ringing, eyes bloodshot and darting side to side. What awful fate awaits me that this banshee in my eardrums is louder still than my thundering pulse.

What's going to happen to me?

Will I die?

Will it hurt even more?

It usually did.

I sat feeling myself breakdown. For a moment something close to calmness passed through me. It was a brief moment where I both knew it was over and simultaneously it also wasn't.

And then gently through the ringing there was a different kind of dull sound. I could hardly hear the first few taps but as it gradually grew louder and more frantic so did I.

This was it.

I wanted to shout, to move, to scream. It could be anyone really, knocking at my door...at 4 in the morning.

I'd already dialled the cops a while earlier when the painful noise began and they had an ambulance on their way to my small apartment.

However, I wasn't going to move or make a single noise until I was certain it was safe.

A warm liquid trickled down my wrist to my elbow from both ears and I shivered seeing the red.

But as the knocking grew louder still, so did the chime.

It was no use digging my palms into the sides of my head when the ringing was from within.

And, it was no use trying to push back against the door being violently kicked open by force.

And as a came around my stomach and another one grasping my nose and mouth I could hardly even flinch.

As a cool object pressed into my abdomen I couldn't even whine or complain.

Because all of a sudden it was just silent.

Dead silent.