Language in Obscurity 4

I developed new tics for every new ONE we came across. Scratching my arm, hiccups, coughing, sneezing, and no amount of punishment could stop them. When the Dancing ONEs came along, the tics stopped. After the Senseless ONEs, I got 2 new tics, foot-tapping and hair-pulling. I could’ve developed a nervous habit for stuttering if I’d had the chance, not that there was much occasion to speak.

Even THEY weren’t as bad as the Pure ONEs who believed that superiority was the result of brutal discipline. Enforced methods were necessary to cleanse impurities out of our internal system and insisted that depending on tools would make us weak. Our glasses were taken away, but so were our clothes, our braces, our crutches, our bandaids - all these were all taken away in an attempt to “toughen us up”. Their rational was that long ago, we lived without these things for years, so we shouldn’t have relied on them all this time. That was what made us weak.

And woe betide those who had visible physical handicaps. They were seen as eyesores not worth seeing. If anybody was missing a body part, the whole body had to be thrown away because it was defective. The deafened were yelled at, since all they needed to do was “listen harder”. The blinded were forced to stare into bright lights until they could see, further ruining what little vision they still had. The paralyzed were forced off high cliffs in a desperate attempt into ‘teaching them how to float and fly’.

No matter how much you encourage the blindfolded to stare through the cloth, they still won’t see a thing.

The bitterest pill to swallow was that despite their powerful appearance, they were notoriously weak. The strongest one of them could’ve been easily overpowered by the smallest one of us. And we never found out until they went away and never came back. They were so loud and intimidating that the thought of fighting back never occurred to us.

Whenever I’ve told this story, I’ve often been asked if I hated them. And they’re always surprised when I say I don’t. The fact was, we were more scared than anything. We lived in mortal fear, never knowing just what new torture would be implemented upon us next. It took every single ounce of self-preservation just to survive. Hatred would have taken up too much energy for that.

Hate is exhausting. You’ve got to constantly remember what was done to you, who did it to you, when it happened, and relive those events every single day. For some, it was the only substance that nourished their meagre lives. It just wasn’t for me. I was more concerned with survival.

Then there were the Brutal ONEs. They looked as tough as the Pure ONEs, but weren’t as weak. There was no pretense in making us understood - they just resorted to violence. Disobedience and displeasure wound up having the same result. Their commands were short barks to the point. We were to carry large stones from one end to another for some project we couldn’t possibly conceive. I think it was supposed to be a pyramid or something.

They didn’t care much if we spoke their language or not, but still insisted on silence while we worked. But that didn’t mean much, since we didn’t get much rest or privacy, and were constantly tired. Every so often, one of them would express interest in one of us, and take them away for awhile. When our friends came back, they were extremely irritable, nervous and twitchy. We tried asking what happened to them, but they refused to tell. What they went through, we could only imagine.

There were those who tried to get word of what happened to them out, but were shot down on the presumption of, ‘These claims of abuse are unsubstantiated. They’ve never happened to me, so they couldn’t happen to you. You must be making it up. Don’t spread such slanderous lies.’

But it did happen. The problem with repeating a lie over and over is that eventually, you begin to believe it. Soon, the complainers started to deny the daily abuses even as it was being done to them. A lie told to yourself often enough turns to be the truth.

I was constantly intimidated when trying to speak up. There was always the implication that I’d be talking to someone who wouldn't understand me, or me them. And there was the danger that I’d be interrupting them in the middle of something. I never knew when was the right time to interrupt. Attracting their attention or asking to speak were grounds for violent reprisal, and I never knew when was the right time.

You could never tell whether THEY were looking in your general direction or if they were preoccupied with something else. And the slightest distraction could be hazardous to your life (or what was left of it). It’s hard enough when you can’t understand the most basic of instructions. And it’s not made any easier when your Teacher just keeps getting more frustrated all the time.

You’d think given how easily they took our senses away from us, they’d be inclined to give us the senses we were missing, but apparently, we hadn't earned the right to gain access to these senses. They were a privilege only reserved for those who asked the right way, and until we did, we would be denied access. You can see the conundrum can’t you? We couldn’t ask for our rights if we never had knowledge or access to the very things we were continuously denied.

Moreover, how could we practice what we never had? Those who had senses we lacked used them unconsciously and couldn't possibly comprehend life without, and thought we were intentionally being obtuse. Even those who mastered the art and were sympathetic to our loss couldn’t cope.

The general consensus among ONEs was that these students were simply faking their symptoms to get away with not doing their work, and because they were being lazy. It wasn’t until actual tests were conducted that showed that we weren’t faking it. It was determined that the reason for our low scores wasn’t because of our lack of interest or basic stupidity, but because our bodies didn’t have the proper receivers to absorb the kinds of information these ONEs came across naturally.

Even so, the testers simply refused to believe what the data was showing them. The students had to be manipulating the data somehow. After much resistance, research for assistance was finally approved by the Mechanical ONEs who just wanted to make the deniers look bad.

A device was created to implant machines in our bodies and brains that would make up for this lack of ability. These machines would block out distracting stimuli and fill in the gaps that weren’t coming through properly. It was important that these installments be grafted on us, since we were still in our formative years. The longer we waited, the harder it would be for us to learn. However, the only way to get these was to agree to these invasive additions voluntarily. And we couldn’t consent to something we had no knowledge of.

They’d always waived any concerns regarding our wants and needs, but for this, they needed permission. To bypass this, a Guardian had to be applied for each individual candidate. A stand-in was assigned to each of us to receive these machines against our control. We were being taught against our will, but wouldn’t find out about this later.

The presence of filters would condense the sheer amount of overwhelming stimuli into a singular sentence that we could understand. This would be something similar to the glasses the Skinless ONEs had, but on a grander scale. Instead of the vastness of the ocean being reduced to a single word, we would be given a condensed paragraph cut into bite-sized increments better suited for swallowing.

For instance, instead of using long complicated words, the filters would use shorter words that were easier to understand at first glance, with gestures to convey what the subject matter was. Knowing just what they were talking about was extremely helpful - previous attempts at lessons relied on guesswork, much of which was widely off the mark. This was further enhanced with emphasis on the first letter of key words, giving us a starting framing reference to work from, and was an immense time saver. And if repeating that word didn’t work? An easier more understandable substitute word would be chosen.

This was a vast improvement over the previous strategy where we could only understand every other word. We didn’t have to constantly ask to repeat what was just said, which only gave disapproving glares, ironic punishments and reinforced lessons to never ask questions again.

However, even with these additions, some of us (myself included) still had trouble processing the information properly. There was resistance to filters not just from skeptics, but also from those of us who felt that the filters was just another excuse for the ONEs to experiment on us. Others couldn’t cope with the intense concentration of specific stimuli over others. Some of us turned the filters off when we had the chance to get the familiar sensations of dulled feelings back again.

There were so many instances where we put the wrong emphasis on a word without our knowing. And since there were so many different languages being thrown at us, some of the tenses began to bleed onto the others. We used the Pure ONEs’ tone with the Brutal ONEs’ terms, Dancing ONEs’ movements combined with Upside-Down ONEs’ body language, mix-and-matching words into one gargantuan mess.

I knew stock phrases to get by on a regular basis, but anything more complicated after Hello was a lost cause. Considering everything, it’s a wonder we were able to communicate at all.

Despite the advantages, there was great reluctance among Teachers to allow filters, since where would the funding come from? Their supply of resources wasn’t inexhaustible. And wouldn’t the presence of these filters be disruptive to the class? Also, why should extra time and energy be put onto these unworthy subjects who showed no signs of promise?

I only found out about this later. I had no idea of the uphill struggle there was in getting us translating devices for the remainder of our formative learning years.

Eventually, a compromise was reached. For the first year, filters would only be available for half of the classes we attended. That was as much as could be expected. After that, if there were no signs of progress, they would be taken off the table.

What was particularly interesting was that, for the classes where no filter was present, the Teachers there complained about how sullen and uncooperative we were. Whereas, in the classes where there were filters, the Teachers were in constant praise of our insight and involvement.

Apparently, understanding what was going on made a world of difference.

After that, we were given filters for all future classes, save those where having a filter wasn’t necessary, such as physical exertion or doing menial work. For years, there were scenes occurring in the background filled with events that we were unaware of. It was only after the filter was applied that we became aware of things that were only alluded to. There was a lot of personal history between students I didn’t know, save for the occasional violent dramatic outbursts between classes. Letting us know what jokes and gossip was being said that’d we’d missed all this time made the experience richer.

Such minuscule events would’ve been considered distracting to our studies, but they were the bread and butter to better knowing the world around us.

Something that isn’t well-known about filtering - it may look easy, but in reality, it is exhausting. The filter has to constantly pay attention to the lecture and convert that stream of constant information into a coherent message to the listener, all while keeping up and not falling too far behind. Not to mention feedback and commentary taking place all at the same time.

Likewise, the listener has to pay attention to the filter all the time, which can be impossible, even if the subject matter is interesting. There were times when our attention would wander off, and we’d miss part of the message, and need to have it repeated back. The longer it’d take to catch up, the longer the listener would fall behind, potential confusion stemming from missing key details. And given the filter’s short-term memory, that piece of crucial information could be easily lost.

Not to mention that it was a constant mental challenge trying to convert one language to another. You always had to pay attention to your surroundings, what everybody was saying at once, then translate that to our home language through what we’d been taught, and look for other subtle underlying messages meanings that hid details we could’ve otherwise missed. And then pass the message on to other slower students wondering what was going on. It’s no wonder that even the simplest conversations left us utterly exhausted.

The Mechanical ONEs meant well, but they still had plenty of blind spots. Very often, they would speak to us in a slow. Halting. Manner. And when in the presence of their own kind, revert back to their mechanical way of rapid speaking via invisible waves that we couldn’t possibly understand. When beings with impeccable memories continuously forget to accommodate the needs of those around them, it starts to feel intentional.

Then the Pure ONEs came back and took these filters away, saying we didn’t need them, that they were just robbing us of our potential. And our promising scores plummeted.