I’ve Lived My Whole Life Without Ever Hearing Music

I’ve never heard music in my life. When I was 14, I watched my mom take a hammer to my phone because the ringtone had played for half a second before I could silence it.

She said even that tiny melody was enough poison to rot our brains forever. My parents believed all music was mind control created by corporations to make people weak and stupid.

Every melody, every rhythm, every note was designed to turn your brain to mush. We lived in a house where the TV was always muted, computers had their speakers ripped out, and even the microwave had tape over the beep button.

Mom said people who listened to music became zombies who couldn’t think for themselves. The hammer came down again and the screen cracked.

“Half a second, Lily,” she said, breathing hard. “Half a second of that poison. Do you want to end up brain dead?”

According to them, everyone who listened to music eventually lost the ability to think clearly. That’s why the world was so messed up, because everyone was walking around with music-rotted brains.

Going anywhere meant stuffing industrial earplugs deep until it hurt. Mom checked each of us before we left the house, yanking on the orange foam to make sure they were seated right.

The grocery store killed me because I knew there was music playing overhead, but the earplugs blocked it completely. Back then I still believed my parents, but some part of me was desperately curious about what we were being protected from.

I’d catch myself straining to hear something, anything, through the foam. Dad had a whole philosophy about it.

He’d give us lectures during silent dinners about how humans were meant to live in natural quiet. He explained how music was invented to make people docile and controllable.

He’d point at people on the muted TV and explain how you could tell they listen to music by how empty their eyes looked. My brothers believed every word.

When I was 14, I accidentally heard music at school when someone’s headphones came unplugged. It was just five seconds of something with drums and a woman singing before the kids scrambled to stop it.

But those five seconds were the most beautiful thing I’d ever experienced. My heart raced and my skin tingled, and I finally understood what we’d been denied.

I also understood why my parents feared it so much. It was not because it was poison, but because it made you feel things they couldn’t control.

I became obsessed with finding ways to hear more. I’d volunteer to return library books during lunch so I could walk past the band room.

I’d dawdle in store bathrooms where the earplugs couldn’t block everything. Once I stood outside a church during a wedding and heard organ music so powerful I cried.

Mom found me there and dragged me home by my hair. After that, they homeschooled me.

My days were silent except for Dad’s lectures and the scratch of pencils. But I’d started humming without realizing it, just tiny melodic patterns under my breath.

My brother Miles caught me and said he’d tell unless I gave him my desserts for a month. I did it because the humming was the only thing keeping me sane.

My youngest brother Micah started having nightmares about music. He’d wake up screaming that songs were chasing him, that drums were beating inside his head.

Mom praised him for being so vigilant against the poison, even in his sleep. She didn’t see what I saw: a seven-year-old so terrified of something beautiful that his own brain was torturing him with it.

When I was 16, our situation got worse. A new family moved in next door with teenage kids who played instruments.

Even through our soundproofed walls, you could feel the bass vibrations. Mom went over there daily to beg them to stop destroying our minds.

Dad started looking at houses in rural areas with no neighbors for miles. My brothers wore earplugs constantly now, even eating with them in.

One afternoon, while everyone was out, I did something stupid. I found Dad’s hidden cash stash and bought a tiny MP3 player from a kid at the library.

I hid in the basement storage room, heart pounding, and put in the earbuds. The first song was just a guitar and a man’s voice, but it felt like my entire body was waking up from a coma.

I listened to ten songs in a row, each one making me feel more human than I’d felt in years. Miles found me down there, eyes wide with horror.

“You’re listening to it,” he whispered. “You’re letting it eat your brain.”

He looked at me like I was already dead. I tried to explain that it wasn’t poison, that it was beautiful, but he was already backing away.

“I have to tell them,” he said. “They need to know you’re infected.”

I grabbed his arm and begged him not to, but he twisted away and ran upstairs screaming for Mom. I heard their footsteps coming and knew it was over.

There was no hiding what I’d done. I’d chosen music over my family’s sickness, and now I’d pay whatever price they decided.

As the basement door flew open and I saw their faces twisted with rage and fear, I put the earbuds back in and turned the volume up. If I was going down, at least I’d go down listening to something beautiful.

Mom’s hand rips the earbuds out so hard the cord cuts into my neck. Dad grabs the MP3 player and throws it against the concrete floor, then stomps on it three times until plastic shards scatter across the storage room.

Mom has both hands on my shoulders now, shaking me so my head snaps back and forth. Her face is right in mine and she’s screaming about poison and infection and how could I do this to myself.

Dad kicks the broken pieces of the MP3 player toward the wall. I watch them skitter across the floor, taking with them the only music I’d ever really owned.

Miles stands in the doorway with his mouth open, looking both scared of what I’ve done and pleased that he caught me. I can still hear the last song playing in my head, the guitar and the woman’s voice, and I hold on to it as tight as I can while Mom keeps shaking me.

Dad yanks me up by my arm and Mom grabs the other one, and they drag me toward the stairs. My feet barely touch the steps as they haul me up, and Miles has to jump out of the way when we reach the top.