Exactly 250 Words

This is called a true short short. It requires that the author uses exactly (not 249 or 251) 250 words. Which is exceptionally difficult and often takes a million revisions to get it right. I'd say I revised this one about 37 times.

Zero One

The planes roared overhead with destinations and pumping fuel. And she sat on a hard egg shaped seat with her back to the airport wall, biting her nails, and tapping her feet. It wasn't her fault, and she knew that she had done everything right. She had performed every exercise, taken every breathing class, and managed perfect attendance at Dr. Novak's clinic. Everything.

It wasn't the blindness that made it so hard, but it was the deafness and that eerie unshakable silence it had brought to the house. They were forced to go beyond simple child-proofing, and they had with vigor. But then one night he left, and it wasn't the pain of a different child that made it so hard, it was taking that pain alone.

And now she watched him from a distance. She watched the tender lost motions of the child with tears that stained bright purple overalls. He was spinning in slow calculated circles and pushing around with his bright orange feeling stick. His cheeks were wet below his darkly tinted sunglasses, and yet he had a certain confidence that grew from living in a world of black static. A tall neatly dressed woman now crouched before him and started asking questions. And she watched him feel the woman's face with his small sweaty hands and move his mouth with no words, the way she had taught him to. And she took one last look, placed his stuffed brown bear on the seat, and walked away.