Indistinct Chatter

If you’re deaf, you know all about it. If not, turn on the closed caption setting on your TV and you can see for yourself.

Indistinct chatter. No, it’s actually in parentheses: “(Indistinct Chatter).” You’ll see it on every TV show—dramas, comedies, news, whatever. The world is full of indistinct chatter. Of course, for deaf people like me, it’s ALL indistinct chatter.

Well, I was helping my ear doctor (don’t worry about the long technical term), who is also a research scientist and engineer, as he worked to develop new hearing aids. The purpose of these new hearing aids is too eliminate indistinct chatter and make it all clear and audible. Even for me.

It worked. I’m using the only pair in existence. The prototype. The good doctor is dead now, but he lived long enough to change my life and the world.

I spent a year overhearing things. Secret things. Things that a person with perfect hearing couldn’t overhear, much less someone with minimal hearing like me. I took a lot of notes. I learned the secrets of important people, influential people, people in high places. I took my notes, encrypted them and put them online in a secure location. I could make them all public with the click of a mouse.

I have the goods on these people. All of them.

So, to make a long story short, that’s how I came to be in charge. Why all of you see me on TV all the time. Why I issue orders and make policies. Why I live in extreme wealth and privilege. Why I determine who lives and who dies.

Dr. Minsky, may God rest his soul, didn’t want me to have that power. That’s why I had to finish him off. You’re not happy about this, are you? I hear you muttering under your breath. I distinctly heard that.

STFU. Don’t you dare say that or even think anything like that again. I won’t allow it.