I Love to Sing

This week, I wrote a modern version of Queen of the Crows. I'm stepping out of what I normally write, so feel free to let me know if I didn't characterize something or someone quite right.

As a note, in the US, there is ASL (American Sign Language), but there is also BASL (Black American Sign Language). It's likely that Kisha would have started out learning ASL and picked up BASL from Tyrese.

Maybe a deaf person can be a singer's favorite person.

Kisha loved to sing. She sang all the time. Most people told her to stop, but not Tyrese. Tyrese never told her to shut up. Of course, he was deaf, so Kisha didn't expect him to.

When they first started kindergarten, the kids were all a little afraid of Tyrese. They wanted to know why he couldn't hear and how they could talk to him when they couldn't really read yet. Their teacher told them about sign language. Kisha went home that night and watched a few videos about learning sign language. It was something new and cool. A few of the other kids learned some signs as well and soon they were signing across the room to each other.

As they moved through grades, not as many of the other kids wanted to learn something else, but Kisha kept learning more BASL. Talking to Tyrese was fun, and he would always let her sing when they were on the playground. It was a little weird that no one knew where Tyrese lived or had been to his house, but he was also the only deaf student, so that mystery just joined the rest.

The years passed, and they weren't in school anymore. Kisha had a job working retail, singing quietly to herself while she folded clothes. She'd gotten pretty good at singing over the years. Now people wanted to hear her sing, which was nice. But there was something about the way she could sing in front of Tyrese that she missed. She could try new things and fail and he would just ask her about the words of the song. She'd asked him once if he thought she was weird. He just smiled and told her that he was weird, so he couldn't judge. That made her laugh and forget whatever she had been worried about.

One day, while she was working, Tyrese walked in. He had grown up, but it was unmistakably him. Kisha walked over to him and started signing, asking him how he was and what he was up to these days. Tyrese told her that he had gotten a good job taking over the family business and it was going well, but he needed some more business clothes. Kisha decided that she was going to be his personal shopper. Her manager always liked when they helped customers, so she could probably get away with it. Kisha helped him pick out the sharpest clothes, many of which she found on the discount rack. Why pay full price when they same thing was being sold at a discount? But when Kisha tried to help him narrow down his choices, Tyrese said he'd take it all. Kisha hadn't expected that. She reminded herself that clearly Tyrese was a lot better off than she was. Then he started handing her cash.

"What's this for?" she asked.

"For helping me," Tyrese said. "Now I want to help you."

Kisha looked at the money dubiously. That wasn't why she'd done this. And she didn't want him to think it was. But he reached out and put it in her hand and she automatically grabbed it.

"Thank you," Tyrese said to her with a smile. Then he headed to the registers to check out.

Later that night, once she was in her room, Kisha pulled out the money Tyrese had given her and counted it. He must be doing really well to buy all those clothes and give her this much!

Tucked within the bills was a note. It had a phone number on it and said, "Text me."

Without really thinking about it, Kisha pulled out her phone and opened up a new text. "It was good to see you today." She stared at it. Was that really what she wanted to text?

Someone knocked on her door. "Kisha, we're ordering pizza. Do you want in?"

"Yes!" Kisha yelled back. She would rather split a delivery with her roommates than eat another freezer meal tonight. She looked down at her phone and saw she'd sent the text. Oh well. She didn't get a reply until after she was eating pizza.

It said, "It was good to see you today too. Are you still singing? :)"

Kisha smiled as she texted him back.

"Ooh. Who are you texting?" Iesha asked.

"Some rich hot guy who's desperately in love with me," Kisha joked.

Her roommates all scoffed or rolled their eyes. Kisha laughed.

"I'm kidding. It's Tyrese from school. I saw him at work today."

"Oh, so he is in love with you," Shay said with a laugh.

"What?"

"Girl, you didn't notice how he spent all his time with you? And now he's back here and he finds you right away?" Shay elaborated. "He's got it bad. Still."

Kisha blushed. "Well, why shouldn't he? I mean, look at all this this!" She gestured up and down her body. Her roommates laughed and agreed.

As time went on, Kisha couldn't help but notice that she had it bad for him too. She was always excited to text with Tyrese and when they met up for dinner, she always had a great time. Her roommates kept asking when she was going to bring him home after a date. And it wasn't for lack of trying, but he always had to go back to his house.

One night, Kisha, sick of this, asked him. "Okay, if you can't come to my place, can I go to yours?" He never talked about where he lived, which is why she didn't ask before, but this was crazy.

Tyrese looked at her for a moment. "You want me to take you away from all of this?" he asked.

Kisha laughed. "Sure. I just need to be back for work tomorrow afternoon."

Tyrese nodded and held her hand. He started walking and Kisha followed. She couldn't talk to him as well since he was holding her hand. She wondered if that was on purpose.

Tyrese stopped and looked around. No one was looking at them. Kisha was confused. If he tried anything she didn't like, he had to know what she would do. Then, their feet were lifting off the ground. They were rising.

Kisha cursed, surprised. Tyrese chuckled.

He signed to her one-handed. "Sorry. I should have warned you."

"Yes you should have!" she snapped at him, counting on him to read her lips. She didn't have the space to show her anger in sign.

"Sorry." Tyrese signed again. They rose higher and higher until, suddenly, they weren't above Earth anymore.

Their feet came to rest on a lawn outside of a huge house. Tyrese let go of her hand. "You know how no one ever came to my house in school?"

"Yes," Kisha signed back.

"That's because I live here." Tyrese gestured to the mansion behind them.

Kisha looked at it and gulped. Where were they? She had the feeling they weren't in her world anymore.

"I can take you home," Tyrese told her.

Kisha shook her head. "No. Now that we're here, I'm going to see your house."

"And meet my parents," Tyrese signed as a woman walked out the front door.

Why not. She was already here. There was some kind of magic going on, but Kisha trusted Tyrese and she trusted herself to not take any shit. Besides, it would be nice to meet his parents. Kisha nodded and walked forward, a smile on her face.