Deaf Clone Trooper
---<//=//>---
The Stillness In The Room
The Stillness In The Room
The silence was so loud, he couldn't fall asleep.
In the barracks, bunks of clone troopers lay sound asleep, contented noises softly echoing off the grey walls. But the man with the bandages wrapped snugly around his head could not hear them. He knew they were there. He knew what they sounded like. A soft symphony of familiar men resting peacefully: puffing of gentle breaths, a shuffle of position-shifting, an occasional snore, and the ever-present drone of Tryd Base's interworkings. Try as he might, the clone trooper could not will his ears to pick up on any of these comforting noises. Instead, only silence gnawed at his mind.
He was deaf.
It wasn't even a heroic act. Nobody saw it coming. Just a dumb trap that he and his brothers had walked right into. They were ordered to go inspect the forward security grid. It was down. Not a big deal, those things were tricky at best to maintain. No speeders available, so they all walked. CT-8429 and his squadmates marched the ten kliks to the forward grid hub. Everyone kept their eyes peeled, but there hadn't been any enemy activity reported in the area. When they arrived, nothing looked out of the ordinary. Commander Royce, an older clone with a stern gaze and temperament to match, punched in a sequence, and the heavy doors to the hub slid aside. The entrance gaped open, and it swallowed up the first trooper that entered, followed by CT-8429. The world around him choked to a halt. The clone trooper vaguely remembered being spit back out of the doorway. A brightness overwhelmed him. The skin on his head singed with an acidic burn that reminded him of the time he had coughed up bile...
And then he woke up in a bacta tank, feeling that something was very wrong.
He saw no sign of the other clone - the one who went ahead of him - in the medical lab. This could only mean that there was no part of him left to repair. In the days that followed the incident, he had been informed of the extent of his injuries from the bomb: shrapnel lesions, second and third-degree burns, dislocated clavicle and shoulder, fracture to his ulna, and total hearing loss. All the other wounds would heal with time, but the hearing loss was permanent. Oh sure, cybernetics could do the trick. But the Republic had grander things to throw their military budget into. A clone was dispensable. "Decommissioned" is what read at the top of the trooper's file now. Nobody could tell him exactly what that meant, other than he was to leave Taanab presently and return to Kamino.
The deaf trooper lay awake that night, wholly unable to steer his mind into the numbness that sleep offered. It was the absence of sound that terrified him, because it never left him. No noise could penetrate its heavy cloak. Even though the stillness in the room was like the frigid air between the heaves of a storm, the clone's thoughts pulsed with electrified frenzy. What happens now? What will they do with me? What will happen to my squad?...my brothers? Will it always be like this? Is there anything I can do? I just want to sleep. I need sleep. Try to sleep. If I had waited a second to enter...just checked my blaster or...nodded to Royce...I would've been fine. But now? What happens now? No answers came to the troubled clone that night, and neither did sleep.
The bandaged clone rubbed his fingers across his temples. He had no interest in the morning meal. Chatting away in front of him were fellow brothers Exit, Luxe, and Jaws. The drab cafeteria was swollen with the same voice out of many mouths - it was the most social part of a trooper's day at Tryd Base. CT-8429 felt anything but social. The three men across the table did their best to include him in their conversations by typing words said on a PADD. But for the most part, they were consumed by the typical banter of the squad. Not that the deaf clone minded, or blamed them. Menial things like the sound of his own chewing no longer complemented the eating experience. Other troopers glided across a blanket of silence in phantasmic fashion. Hell, even his own boots didn't dully thud against duracrete as he sat at the bench with his brothers. It was a surreal thing to watch unfold in the caf.
A bare finger tapping on the deaf clone's hand snapped his attention front. Lux was gesturing at the PADD in his hand. The wounded trooper looked it over.
"You can still talk, right?" was all that Lux had typed out.
"Yea," was his dry response, notably a tad louder than usual for the clone.
Flashing a grin, Lux gave him a thumbs up and typed up another message on the PADD. When he had finished, he held it up: "You're a little loud. We can help you with that. Are you going to learn sign language?"
The deaf clone was not amused. He shook his head gruffly and looked away - both in frustration and embarrassment. This did not deter his brother. Once more Lux stamped his fingers against the holoscreen of the PADD and then offered it. The deaf clone pretended to be preoccupied in his meal, despite Lux and now Exit waving in his periphery. His ignorance earned him a swift kick under the table. Though he glared the men down when his eyes met theirs, he took the PADD from Lux and began to read: "I'm being serious. I've already talked it over with Royce. He wasn't too thrilled, but he gave his okay to us learning sign language off duty. We can learn together, until you have to go." The deaf clone wanted to say no, wanted to not be a burden, wanted things to go back to normal. Despite his genetic steering towards adaption, he was reluctant to make a big deal out his newfound disability.
Reluctance bowed to persistence. That night, a sun bonnet's light was kept on at an angle to illuminate a small corner of the barracks. While most of the clone troopers slept soundly, Exit, Lux, and Jaws sat around a holo-emitter of a recorded Pantoran woman demonstrating Galactic Sign Language. The deaf clone sat with them, nodding along as he tried to replicate what he saw. It wasn't flash training, but it was something. The four of them learned and gestured in silence.
And for once, there was comfort in the stillness of the room.
---<//=//>---
I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Storm -
The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -
I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Fly -
With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -
Between the light - and me -
And then the Windows failed - and then
I could not see to see -
-Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Storm -
The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -
I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Fly -
With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -
Between the light - and me -
And then the Windows failed - and then
I could not see to see -
-Emily Dickinson