Based on Brave New World for school. Feedback?

My name is Benjamin Larson and I am deaf. Thankfully, I am also quite intelligent.

No one realized my defect when I was born. I went through the normal hypnopaedic conditioning just like every other child, although it had no effect on me.

I tried to be a good boy. I just copied the other children. But I was often confused and always in trouble. The adults just attributed it to a mistake while I was in my bottle. They would never have imagined I couldn’t hear. Something like that hadn’t happened in hundreds of years and no one did any imagining ever anyways.

I quickly learned how to read lips very well. When someone motioned to something I would notice the shape of their lips. Being taught to read helped too. This made it easier to stay out of trouble. Which is all I really wanted when I was younger.

I never talked, obviously. People thought I was shy and didn’t want to be around me. I was fine with that. I liked being alone. I tried to make it seem like I wanted friends though. If I was alone on purpose I would be punished. I smiled a lot, even if it was fake, even if I didn’t laugh. This helped me be accepted.

I had my first girl when I was thirteen. For some reason I had girls quite often. They liked me. They must’ve thought I was handsome, because it sure wasn’t my witty humor that got them. Or maybe they liked my position. I was pretty high up. Alpha-minus.

I liked some girls more than others. When they talked to other boys I always got this funny feeling. Later I learned it was jealousy.

I was bored with my life. I was twenty-three. Playing meaningless sports. Going to the feelies night after night. All of the same girls in the same boring town.

Then one day, Cynthia Ross showed up. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was from Dublin. Her hair was like fire. Her eyes were bottle-green. I loved her. I had seen that word once before. Love. I wasn’t sure exactly what it meant. But when I saw her I knew that she was it. That she was the embodiment of this strange, unknown word.

I had her six times. I was really alive then.

But in this world, these things only last so long. Not long at all actually. It seemed like a second had gone by. And then she was with Henry. And then John. And then Tom. Every other man was so wrong. It felt like something was being ripped inside of me.

I knew about the conditioning by now. I knew I had missed it. Or rather avoided it. Been so lucky.

But love almost made me wish I had heard it. To prevent this agonizing torture. This jealousy. Cynthia, Cynthia, Cynthia...

I moved away from London. To Sydney. It was just like London. Exactly the same actually. But without Cynthia. Without the constant reminder of love.

Sydney also happened to be right next to the largest Savage Reservation in the World. It was still quite small though. Compared to everything else I mean. I managed to get permission to visit it. For purely scientific reasons. Of course.

I toured. They were so different. Primitive. I saw their rituals. Observed their lives. I didn’t fit in here either.

But they did have something that intrigued me.

They had a building for keeping records and special objects. Books, paintings, sculptures. I had never seen anything like it.

None of the books were about science. Few were fact. I was astounded. They had beautiful rhymes and words like magic and marriage. And I kept seeing that accursed word love everywhere.

The word I adored and hated in the same moment.

I was fascinated. I couldn’t take my eyes away. They were fastened to every page. Every word. I wanted to learn more and more and more.

I gained permission to stay in the Reservation longer.

And longer.

And longer....

They didn’t care about me. I never talked. I wasn’t social. And if I was in the Savage Reservation I certainly wasn’t spreading any heretical ideas.

So many “heretical” ideas were filling up my head, too. Sacred practices, religion, legends, ceremonies, folklore, fairytales. They were all there. And they were all so much better. Better than the boring, and then torturing, life I had led in civilization.

I learned more about love. It was mentioned in every story. On every page. Learning more about it somehow cleansed the wound in the center of me that was Cynthia. What was once a gaping hole was now just an aching scar.

Yes I had loved her. Yes I still do.

But I will never be able to reverse her conditioning. I know that now.

One of the passages I had stumbled upon in my fervent reading was this:

'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

How true this man was. He saved my life in a way. Years later and I am still here, in this museum of sorts. Content reading and learning and recording.

I had experienced something that no one outside of the Savage Reservation would ever know. I was the luckiest, most heart broken man in the world.