I’ve Lived My Whole Life Without Ever Hearing Music

She’s pointing at our house and then at the neighbor’s house, and her face is red. The woman takes a step back and says something calm, probably trying to settle Mom down, but it just makes Mom angrier.

A teenage boy comes out onto the neighbor’s porch, maybe 16 or 17. The woman turns to him and says something, and he goes back inside.

Mom keeps yelling for another minute, then storms back across the yard to our house. The neighbor woman stands there watching her go, then looks up at the houses like she’s trying to figure something out.

Her face is worried in a way that makes me think she knows something is very wrong here. She goes back inside, and I stay at the window wondering what she’s thinking, whether she believes any of Mom’s crazy accusations.

That evening, I’m lying on my bed when I feel it: a low vibration coming through the wall. It’s so faint I almost miss it, but when I press my hand flat against the wall, I can feel it clearly.

It is bass, deep and rhythmic, coming from the neighbor’s house. They must be practicing, the teenage boy and whoever else plays instruments over there.

I get up and press both hands against the wall, then my cheek, trying to feel as much of the vibration as possible. It’s not the same as hearing music, but it’s close.

It’s something. The tremors pulse through the wall into my palms, and I can almost imagine the actual sounds, the drums or bass guitar or whatever is making these waves.

This is the closest I can get to music now, and I stand there soaking it in. These faint tremors connect me to something real and beautiful happening just on the other side of this wall.

The vibrations continue for maybe 20 minutes, sometimes stronger, sometimes barely there. I stay pressed against the wall the whole time, my eyes closed, trying to pull the music through the plaster and wood through pure wanting.

The door lock clicks and I spin around. Mom is standing there staring at me with my hands still on the wall.

She crosses the room in three steps and slaps my hands away hard enough to sting. Her breathing is fast and her eyes look wild, darting between me and the wall like the music might leak through and grab her too.

She leaves and comes back five minutes later with thick foam padding, the kind Dad used to soundproof parts of the house. She tears off strips of tape and starts covering the section of wall where I was standing, pressing the foam down hard and smoothing it flat.

She does three layers, overlapping them so there’s no gap. When she’s done, she presses her own hand against it to test and seems satisfied that the vibrations are blocked.

She’s breathing hard and her hands are shaking, and I realize she’s not angry, not really. She’s scared.

She’s terrified of losing control over me, of the music getting in despite all their locks and rules and lectures. She looks at me and I see fear in her eyes, pure fear, and something else.

Maybe it is the beginning of understanding that fear isn’t the same thing as protection. She leaves without saying anything and locks the door behind her.

That night at dinner, Dad makes an announcement. We’re all sitting at the table, me with a parent on each side like I might run, Miles across from me looking at his plate, and Micah at the end picking at his food.

Dad says he found a property online, a house on 20 acres at least an hour from the nearest town. No neighbors for miles, completely isolated, perfect for protecting us from the infected zone we’re living in now.

He says we’re moving there within two weeks, that he’s already put down a deposit and started packing arrangements. Mom nods along, relieved, like this move will solve everything.

Miles looks up briefly, and I see something in his face—maybe doubt, maybe just tiredness—but he doesn’t say anything. Micah asks if there will be other kids there.

Dad says no, that’s the whole point, that we’ll be safe from outside influences. I sit there with food I can’t eat and watch my family plan my complete isolation.

Two weeks. 14 days before they take me somewhere I’ll never hear music again, never see another person my age, never have any chance of escape.

The calm I felt in the basement is completely gone now, replaced by something sharp and desperate. I have 14 days to figure out what I’m going to do, because I know with absolute certainty that I can’t let them take me to that rural prison.

I look at each of their faces. Mom’s is relieved, Dad’s is satisfied, Miles is uncertain, and Micah’s is confused.

I know that whatever I do, I’m going to have to do it alone. That night I wait until I hear Dad snoring through the wall and then get up to test my bedroom window.

I push on the frame and it doesn’t budge at all. When I run my fingers along the edges, I can feel where thick paint has sealed it completely shut.

I try the other window and it’s the same thing. Both of them were painted closed probably years ago, when they first started worrying about me escaping.

But when I examine the door, I find something useful. The lock is just a basic slide bolt on the outside, the kind you can buy at any hardware store.

The gap between the door and frame is wide enough that I might be able to slip something thin through to push it open. I test it carefully with a bookmark and feel the bolt move slightly, and I know this is my way out if I need it.

The next morning, Mom takes her usual shower at exactly 7:30, and I listen for the water to start running. I slip downstairs as quietly as possible and head straight for the kitchen, my heart beating so hard I can feel it in my throat.

Dad’s car keys are hanging on their hook by the garage door where they always are. I grab them and shove them deep into a box of bran cereal in the very back of the pantry behind the canned goods.

I’m back upstairs and in my room before the shower turns off, and I sit on my bed trying to calm my breathing. An hour later, I hear Dad getting ready to leave, and then his voice gets loud and confused.

He’s looking for his keys and can’t find them. Within minutes, he’s tearing through the house, opening drawers and checking coat pockets and getting more and more worked up.

Mom joins in the search and I hear them going through every room. Then Dad’s voice gets sharp and accusing.

He calls for Miles and I hear my brother come downstairs. Dad demands to know if this is some kind of joke.

Miles sounds genuinely confused and denies taking anything, but Dad doesn’t believe him and keeps pushing. They argue back and forth while Mom keeps searching, and I stay in my room listening to the chaos I created.

Finally, Dad gives up and says they’ll have to reschedule the appointment to sign the property papers. I feel this little surge of power knowing I made that happen.

Three days pass and I spend most of my time at my window watching the house next door. I start noticing patterns in how the family moves around.

A teenage boy who looks about my age leaves through the front door every morning at 7:30 with a backpack, and he comes home around 3:00 in the afternoon. In the late afternoon I can see him through his window sometimes, and I think he’s playing some kind of instrument because I can feel those bass vibrations again.

One day he’s in his yard and he looks up at my window and I duck back fast, but not before I see him raise his hand like he might be waving. I don’t know if he actually saw me or not, but my hands are shaking anyway.

Mom finds the keys on the third day and she’s absolutely furious when she discovers them in the cereal box. She confronts Dad about being so careless and misplacing important things, and he swears up and down that he didn’t put them there.

They argue about it for an hour and I can hear the stress in both their voices, but the delay worked exactly like I hoped. I’ve been using these three days to think through everything, weighing my options and trying to figure out the best choice.