Ears to Hear

[bairnsidhe]

Filling my "Ears" square for Cotton Candy Bingo, and my "physical imperfections" square for origfic bingo.

EDIT: Much thanks tokengr for pointing out a mistake in my spelling.

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Zoe Keener-Riley had only been famous an hour and she already hated it.

It was the ears, oddly enough.  It wasn’t her phytokinesis, it wasn’t her cutting edge research on genetically modified plants, it wasn’t even her relationship to the Sentinels,  the midwest’s largest supergroup.  Helena Riley, more widely known as Doyenne, the super strong leader of the Sentinels, had basically adopted Zoe after a mission went horribly wrong and Zoe’d been left alone, but honestly they were almost all like parents to her.  Except Uncle Perriot, who probably shouldn’t be responsible for a goldfish.  Zoe would at least partly understand if it had been voyeristic celebrity gossip that garnered her more than fifteen minutes of fame.  But no, nothing as normal as that.

Nope.  What catapulted Zoe Keener-Riley into fame was her ears.

Specifically, her hearing aids.  The bright purple hearing aids made by Chop Shop the robotic Sentinel for her when she got pissed about how long the wait list for new ones was and came to the base to whine to her mother.  Some idiot had snapped a picture and made a meme and suddenly her life went to shit as she stood in the eye of a hurricane of opinions on how people should and shouldn’t wear aids.  She hated it.

“I went into lab science for a reason!” she complained.  Nobody had much sympathy, but that’s what you get when you’re raised by famous people.

“At least try to read a fan letter,” her mother urged.  “We get some really nice ones.”

“I’ve done nothing to be famous!” Zoe yelled in frustration.  Rolling her eyes she snagged a letter from the stack.  “Fine.  One letter.”

“You’re trying,” her mom said.  “That’s all we’ve ever asked.”

She sat in the reading nook and read.

Dear Miss Zoe,

I’m eleven and four months and I’ve worn aids since I was four and ten months and I think your aids are pretty.  Purple is my favorite color, and I like the swoopy thing at the back.  It looks like jewelry, but not like any jewelry I’ve ever seen.  Where do you get them?  I want pierced ears, but Mom says I have to wait until I’m sixteen.  She did say I could put rhinestones on my aids though, as long as I don’t block the battery part.

Respectfully

Kathy Waller

Zoe smiled and grabbed a piece of paper.

Dear Kathy,

Thank you for writing me.  I like purple too, and the swoopy bit makes the aids more secure on my ear, and spread the weight out a bit.  Chop Shop made them for me, and zyr style is pretty close to Art Nouveau.  You can find loads of art resources for patterns and ideas in books of Art Nouveau costumes.  If you want to, I’d love to see a picture of your new aid-style.

Sincerely

Zoe Keener-Riley

She read another letter, and then another.  Kids with aids, kids with canes, kids with wheelchairs and arm braces and all manner and form of equipment.  Each one asking for connection, for family, for comradery.  Ironically enough, for an ear to hear them.  After her hands cramped from replying, she realized she had a new hobby.  A quick trip to Chop Shop’s personal programmer Shikoba got a request for a website to help these kids connect not just with her, but with each other.  A week in, and the gallery was already teeming with photos of mods, templates and stencils, and the chat board had a thriving thread on aids for disabilities made by the disabled.  

It may have been the ears that made her famous, but if it helped kids feel heard, she would take it.

Comments

[kengr]

I like it!

Having blind & Deaf friends sensitizes you to that sort of thing.

One minor note. An aide is a person who assists someone. An aid is a device that helps you do things.

So you need to drop a bunch of "e"s. :-)

[bairnsidhe]

I like it!

I'm glad you do!

Having blind & Deaf friends sensitizes you to that sort of thing.

It does indeed, as does spending any amount of time looking at the history of disability in Local-America.

One minor note. An aide is a person who assists someone. An aid is a device that helps you do things.

So you need to drop a bunch of "e"s. :-)

*Slaps own forehead.* I knew I was messing up somewhere. My language sometimes drops into Brit-English for no real reason and a symptom of that is not noticing the extra "e"s as being out of place. I'll fix it.

[kengr]

Learning what *not* to do with menus on the old BBS was a major learning experience. So was learning what would make things easier.

Finding out that one of the guys running a popular BBS was deaf was a bit of a surprise too. :-)

And helping Lin try out various bits of adaptive gear and software for her computer was interesting as well. And is why I own a Braille embosser.

Pity so much adaptive tech gets mostly bought by state agencies or big corporations. It keeps the prices insanely high.

[chanter1944]

So much love! :)

The concept of a Midwestern superbunch called the Sentinels made me squee. I've got a couple of biases there, and I freely admit it.

*coughs* Kids with canes represent! *coughs*

[bairnsidhe]

Thank you! :D

The concept of a Midwestern superbunch called the Sentinels made me squee. I've got a couple of biases there, and I freely admit it.

I've got a few of those same biases, to be totally honest.

*coughs* Kids with canes represent! *coughs*

Oh yeah, representation is in da house! I love it when I see media representation of kids with "non-age-standard" aid equipment, so I really wanted to show it in my own work

[chanter1944]

Accurate, human representation matters all the more, and thank you for it. :)

Re: the Midwest: You're south of me, I see. Somehow I didn't realize that, or just forgot location.