Burst My Bubble

5 year old Z. 

Sitting "Indian-style" (to use the parlance of that time) on the floor, listening to the teacher in class. 

And I'm having the time of my life. 

Why? 

Because I'm making a pleasant, bubbling, popping sound in my cheeks and underneath my tightly closed lips. 

Pushing air around inside my mouth, making thousands of tiny, gurgling frog chirps inside the confines of my closed mouth. 

And I'm the only one who knows. It's like a little secret, just for me.

Not a care in the world. 

Totally in the zone. 

Not listening to a single word the teacher is saying. Not even pretending to be.

Grooving to the satisfying ripple of air bubbles popping like caviar inside my mouth.

I've lost all track of time. 

Truly in the moment. 

Enjoying life. 

"Z!"

I stop. My teacher's tone is surprisingly irritated.

Did I miss something? 

"What?" I ask, alarmed and curious. 

"Can you stop making that sound?"

In utter naïveté, blissfully secure that the sound inside my own head surely couldn't have been noticed by anyone other than me, I ask for clarification.

"What sound?" I ask. Could it be some other sound I'm making?

The teacher, more irritated, possibly thinking I'm trying to purposefully decieve her, barks: 

"That sound you're making. In. Your. Mouth."

My little reality shatters into a million pieces.

Everything I believed, or thought I knew about how sound worked, scattered to the wind.

What else did I believe that was a lie?!

Timidly, I asked, "You can hear that?" embarrassed and frightened. 

She couldn't have realized how perfectly horrifying her answer was to my shocked sensibilities. 

"We can ALL hear it."

What?!

"Oh," I said, shrinking. Diminishing into the floor I sat cross legged upon, surrounded by my peers on all sides. 

They could hear? The noise I had making inside my own head?! 

How was that possible? 

My mouth had been shut! 

Could they hear inside my head?!

Their giggles confirmed it. They had heard it, too. 

It wasn't a fluke, or some lucky guess by my teacher. 

And I had been making that sound for the entire class so far. Practically since we sat down. 

Satisfied, the teacher continued the lesson, confident that I would no longer interrupt. 

They had heard me make that bubbly fart noise in my mouth the whole time.

Inside my own mouth. With my mouth closed. How could they hear that? 

Was nothing sacred? Was nothing private? 

What else could I be doing that was obvious to everyone? 

I had to question everything, from then on.

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