Wes first discovered earplugs by happenstance; he’d needed them to shut out the mumbling television conversations that came through the wall he shared with his anonymous neighbor that never went to sleep. The earplugs were a balance—détente. That’s where it started.
Somewhere along the line, Wes decided to take the earplugs out of the bedroom. They were tremendous at blocking background noise when he needed to concentrate on a project. From that start, it seemed that he’d been missing out on a major aid to accomplishment. Wes was now getting more things done, in less time, and with much greater precision.
The world was becoming a bright and intense place—completely new. Without the mask of sound, the true pleasures, pains, motives of people, and purpose of objects became more than apparent—obvious. Movies changed: actor’s expressions, the little glances unnoticed before, the director’s choice of camera angles, the cinematographer’s selected depth of field, all told a story that was so much more than the weak utterances of dialogue that had always tried to convey reality but mostly just got in the way.
The plugs he bought from the drugstore chain were okay—for beginners—but they did let in some noise. At first, when the quiet was new, Wes didn’t notice. Eventually, the tiny amounts that leaked in began driving him crazy. He learned of other sources, sources where plugs that provided real protection from the dangers of sound could be obtained. He found an ad, buried deep in a magazine for gun collectors, which promised earplugs with the power to stop bullets. The silence was incredible—at first.
Wes trained himself to speak and understand sign language, the private communication of the deaf. He envied their world, a place where permanent silence was never breached by requests for removed earplugs, because there were no earplugs to expect to be removed. For the naturally deaf, others accepted their silent wall, but not for Wes. People could see the plugs, and would make very little effort to understand him enough to translate words into the gestures he preferred.
Eventually, even the earplugs designed to hide the explosions of gunshots became as useless as cotton stuffing. The least of sounds—a person walking and talking on a cell phone on the street outside, a car radio from an open window waiting for a green light at the intersection—became as annoyingly loud as the steady tock-tic of a clock after it was noticed in a room. But, stronger solutions could be found.
There are stores—many towns have them—where military goods can be purchased. Most of the stuff on display, manufactured specifically for collectors, is useless. Wes didn’t bother with the shelf of cardboard boxes that displayed the various colors of commercially rated ear protective devices. Here, wasn’t anything that he hadn’t tried before. He walked to the back of the store. A fat man, sporting a thick gray beard, sat in an old stuffed chair with cracked upholstery. He had a large dog at his feet. The dog took about two seconds notice of Wes, decided he was no threat, and rested his head back on the fat man’s sandal.
The man saw his earplugs right away, and took no effort to speak with Wes. In the same way that Wes didn’t hear, it wasn’t in his nature for the fat man to move: all the things he appeared to need were within his reach, next to his chair at the back of the store. Immediately, he changed his mind about the first box he’d grabbed, replacing it on the low shelf and taking up the one next to it. This second box, he put into Wes’ hand.
The manufacturer hadn’t bothered with marketing, beyond an old-fashioned, dull, logo in silver script, embossed across the red ribbed-paper lift-off box cover. Inside, the two—if you were white—flesh-colored plugs rested on die-cut indents in basic black foam. They gave gently as Wes applied pressure, but substantial form and a resistance to his squeeze indicated superior strength over any of the hundreds of inferior attempts now stored throughout the drawers in his apartment. These were earplugs designed to hold away the sound of an exploding land mine—or a field of them—and let the wearer still keep his wits. He handed the fat man his credit card without asking a question; these were worth any cost.
Now, the world had lost all its noise. The horns of cars were gone, the motors too. Everything in the world floated, gliding on air without friction. Wes no longer suffered blocked thoughts, or distracted concentration. His mind flooded with ideas and observations. Television, with its mind-numbing chatter and enhanced laughter tracks, had nothing to offer. Wes started to read more. He started with all the books he’d ever meant to read. Once he went through those, he took up the ones he never thought he’d have the time to get to. After that, he read the books he always never cared to. After that, he started through them all again.
It continued this way for years. Wes spent hours walking in the park, observing. He took his vacations in places of great beauty, or visual hostility, looking always for the thrill of experience, and the chance to expand in the luxury of his brain. He no longer pretended—pointing to his ears and shaking his head—to be deaf when people spoke to him. He ignored them, and every stupid thing they had to say.
Phones didn’t ring. Motorcycles were as quiet as drifting clouds. The waves of the turbulent Pacific Ocean crashed against the rocky coastal beach in violent peace. The world was as beautiful as Wes had ever known it.
But the bitch that is the ear won’t give up: his, stubbornly refused to accept imposed silence. In time, it adjusted. In time, it began to filter out from the silence, noise. Deep in the background, the noise was still there; in time, his ears brought it back.
Wes returned to the store where he bought the two little plugs that had given so much pleasure. The fat man, or one like him, was still at the back of the store, the disinterested dog still at his feet—the boxes, still at his side. He didn’t offer a box this time; both Wes and he knew that there was no need. Plugs were perfunctory tools for the uncommitted novice, from whose ranks few would take the last step. The fat man obtained a glass tube—a vial—from somewhere, and handed it to Wes in exchange for his plastic card.
Watching himself in the bathroom mirror of his apartment on Leavenworth Street, Wes tilted his head to let the liquid—half of what came in the glass tube—slide down into the first of the offending canals. Much to his surprise, it didn’t sting in pain: a thousand tiny hairs were tickling him with pleasure. It took only minutes until the tickling stopped, the sensation of feeling was gone, and the ear was gloriously mute. He tilted his head to the other side, and completed his transformation into a butterfly.
