"Ever since she was a child, Louise has been not quite hearing and not quite deaf. After an audiology test shows that almost all her hearing is gone, her doctor suggests a cochlear implant. This irreversible operation would give Louise a new sense of hearing, but it would come at the expense of her natural hearing, which has shaped her relationship with the world, full of whispers and shadows." --

Told through the perspective of his sister in poetry, prose, and the sign-language alphabet, when hearing-impaired Carlo begins to lose vision in his only functioning eye he must undergo an operation to try and save his vision.