Tonight, we walk the streets of Savannah with royalty. Traffic does not part when she walks by. Her unwitting subjects, trudging along the sidewalks, do not pay her a genuflecting glance. When they see her, they do not even recognize her sacred station. But they smile just the same. For one cannot help but smile at royalty. 

Her sovereign vestments are made of cotton and denim. Her robe, of spun atmosphere. Her jeweled crown, invisible to the human eye. But she is royal nonetheless. 

Her name is Maddie. Or as we like to call her, “Your Majesty.”

Her Grace stops at a crosswalk to wait for a string of traffic to pass before crossing Habersham Street. She is smiling at each car that passes, for no reason at all. It is Sunday evening, and for no explainable reason, she is happy. 

“Why are you so happy?” I ask Her Excellency as she monitors the traffic situation. 

Maddie cannot hear me speak, of course. She is deaf. But she has trained

herself to feel vocal vibrations and read lips. The random vibrations she senses, she associates with mental colors. The colors help her earmark all sounds and place them into categories. It is in this way that Her Highness can identify different noises. She can, for example, tell the difference between the deep-purple thrum of an A/C unit and the bright-red explosion of a dog barking. 

She replies to my question after sensing the peach-colored vibrations from my voice and reading my lips with her one good eye. 

That’s another thing. Her Highness’s left eye was removed because of glaucoma complications. Her right eye has glaucoma, but right now it works fine. The bad eye was giving her migraines. 

Maddie spent her teens in a murky depression. Sometimes Maddie wouldn’t…