Magick Adventure

It’s Time

It’s Time

Some time later the car pulled into the driveway of their family home.

Once Mrs Rose parked the car she got out and unloaded her daughter and pushed her inside. Oh how Saahira wished she could tell her mum that she wanted to do these things herself, but how could she make her understand. She wished with all her heart for a way to tell her Mum how she felt, a wish she feared would never come true.

Once inside, Mrs Rose took Saahira into the lounge room and placed her in front of the TV. She put on the TV for Saahira to watch. Saahira loved TV. The characters didn't talk like she couldn't understand them or wasn't there, like she was an object instead of a person. She knew they didn't know anything about her and were oblivious to her existence, but the point was she was just another audience member. Nothing else. That's what mattered. She was included like every other person, and that was all she wanted, to be included and treated like everyone else.

Mrs Rose headed to the kitchen, sat at the table and did some knitting while watching the TV as well.

About an hour later a show came on about a girl who had magical powers and all the shenanigans her choices and magic got her into. Saahara loved these kinds of shows, the wonder magic introduced captivated her imagination.

While this was playing Mrs Rose looked at the time and decided it was time to start preparing dinner. She figured Saahira would be fine there. She normally was, and usually remained there until dinner, so she headed out to the garden.

'Wouldn't it be cool if magic were real?' Saahira thought as the ending credits began scrolling up the screen. 'Wait! What if it is real? Maybe it could help her talk. Maybe it could help her move her mouth so she could get words out. Maybe it could make those around her finally understand her and see her as a person.

She whipped round to look for her mother. Her mother was nowhere in sight. This meant that she was out in the garden picking vegetables for dinner. There was no trace of her father either. She was entirely alone. This was her chance; maybe her only chance. She had to take it. She may not get another opportunity. She started moving her wheelchair toward her Mum’s craft room, careful to be quiet. If there was an unusual sound her mother would come racing in and she'd continue watching her like a hawk and she'd never get another chance. She couldn't blow this. She had to succeed if she was to have any chance of changing things. Her life, her dreams, her wants, her desires, her future, they were all riding on this one moment, and she knew it. Carefully she navigated through the door into the craft room, careful not to hit the doorframe or anything else. Once in there she raced over to the computer as quickly and quietly as she could. She turned the volume of the speakers all the way down and turned the computer on. It started up. It came up with the login screen. Now, because her mum thought she couldn't read she had never bothered to hide her password from her daughter, but she could read and without her mother realising it she had memorised her mother's password. She typed the password in and was immediately taken into her mother's account.

Because she had seen her mother use this thing a million times, she knew exactly where what she wanted was. She went straight to the computer's browser and typed in 'is magic real?'

Browsing through the results she was disheartened to learn that magic was in fact not real. She kind of had figured this, but she had been hoping that it was. But as she was browsing she started coming across terms like 'belief systems', ‘spiritual practices', and 'rituals' and began to wonder what this was about. One entry listed it as ‘magick’ with a 'k' which she thought was weird. She decided to try 'is witchcraft real?' Now what she found caught her imagination with wonder. She read that witchcraft was real and that today it can be used to refer to something called 'Wicca'. Searching this further she learned that Wiccans believed in 2 gods, a goddess and a god, and believed in worshipping nature.

As she read she began to hear a voice in her heart, 'yes! Yes!' it screamed and she felt like this was something important.

She wanted to keep going but time was running out. She needed a way to speak, so she opened another tab and searched ‘how can I talk when I can't speak?'

A lot of the results weren't helpful, but under the 'People also ask' section there was the question 'What is a communication device for people who can't speak?' Curious, she opened it. It spoke about something called AAC devices, tools that people who are non-speaking could use to communicate.

'Wait!' she thought, 'she was non-speaking!'

She eagerly put 'AAC' into the search bar and what she read next both blew her mind and changed her outlook on life. She read that 'AAC' stood for ‘Augmentative and Alternative Communication’ and AAC helped people who couldn't reliably speak, whether at times or at all, to communicate and be understood.

This was for people who couldn't talk, people like her. There was something out there that could help her be heard and understood, that could enable her to tell people what she thought and how she felt.

She jumped on YouTube and entered ‘AAC’ in the search bar. The screen filled with many videos of people using phones and tablets to communicate, parents showing viewers the programs that their children use to make their voices heard. Saahira couldn't believe what she was seeing. She had to show and convince her parents to get her an AAC. This was the answer to her prayers, the key to everything she ever wanted - to be heard and understood.

It was at that moment she suddenly heard her mother calling her. She was back in from the garden and her voice was panicked. She was wondering where Saahira was, because she wasn't where she left her. Saahira had moments to think of a way to get her mother to listen to her request, but how was she going to do that? She needed a way of telling her Mum, communicating with her with what was on hand. It was then she remembered, she'd seen her mum write things on the computer before, documents of words.

'That's it' she thought. 'A word document!'

She quickly opened word and a new document and began typing as fast as her fingers would work to type out her message. She just finished typing out a brief message when her mother burst in. Mrs Rose breathed an audible sigh of relief seeing Saahira unharmed and ok. Mrs Rose went to give Saahira a hug thankful she was ok when Saahira moved back out of the way and sharply pointed at the screen.

Mrs Rose started to scold her saying that she shouldn’t be touching the computer but stopped when she saw what was written on the screen.

In clear black and white the screen said ‘Mum, I can understand you.’

Upon seeing those words Mrs Rose froze. ‘She must be seeing things’ Mrs Rose thought, but there was no denying it, she had not written those words, and her husband never used her computer, so he couldn’t have written it either. That only left one person in the house, Saahira.

While Mrs Rose was clearly processing this Saahira saw that she had her mother’s attention and she was listening, possibly truly listening for the first time ever, so Saahira kept going. ‘Mum, I understand you. I’ve always understood you, even when you thought I didn’t, I did. I may not be able to talk, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have things to say. I need a way of being heard and understood. I need an AAC device. Oh, and I’m not going to break the computer.’

Mrs Rose was rooted to the spot. Massive waves of emotions were crashing down on her, her mind was racing, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her daughter, her non-verbal disabled daughter that everyone said would never understand her or anything around her, that could not learn, that she would never be able to have a conversation with, that all the professionals were telling her to put into an institution because she would never have any quality of life was now typing in full coherent sentences with the words spelt correctly, no mistakes, and was asking simply for a way to communicate.

She read her daughter’s message once, twice, three times, then with a barely audible shaking voice asked ‘What’s an AAC device honey?’

Saahira minimised the word document and went over to the internet browser again and opened the tab that spoke about AAC and highlighted the part she wanted her mother to read, then moved aside so her mother could take the mouse to navigate the page.

Mrs Rose slowly moved over to take the mouse. Both her hand and her legs were shaking and she felt like her legs might fall out from under her at any moment. Trying her best to hold the mouse still she read the part Saahira had highlighted.

‘That’s you!’ she said hoarsely looking back at Saahira when she finished.

Saahira nodded.

Saahira then took back the mouse and moved to the YouTube tab and started playing the different videos for her mother to watch. With every video more and more tears welled up in Saahara’s eyes while Mrs Rose felt her heart ache with each passing one, watching kids talk to their parents without the use of their voices, but with technology.

After several videos Saahira switched back to the word document and typed ‘I can do this too. I can communicate. I just need the tools to do so. I am able to do so much more than you think I can. Let me show you what I can do, PLEASE!!!’.

Mrs Rose could hear the pleas in her daughter’s words, but then Saahira turned around to look at her mum. Her tears were flowing nonstop. The look in her daughter’s eyes, the pain, the longing broke what little self control she had left and she started crying too.