Tonight, we'll unravel the sordid mess,
From the Facts in the Case of Patient S.
The patient was a female with cerebral palsy,
in a paraplegic condition,
She was also mute, had been so since aged three,
With Doctor Marcus as attending physician.
Patient S couldn't speak, but her mind was sharp,
Although she was mute, you could not call her dumb,
She used her phone to speak, for the most part,
By texting her words, with one thumb.
Although most impressive, this caused tendonitis,
constant cramping, and repetitive strain,
So, Doctor Marcus sought out a new means for this typist,
To get the words out of her brain.
And that's when he started to make a device,
To interpret her brainwaves, into signals precise
With brainscans, computers, and predictive text,
To translate her thoughts into what she'd say next.
Although the machine was incredibly clever,
After tweaking, and testing quite vigorous,
It took three weeks of trial and error
To make a sentence came out of the gibberish.
"Doc, can you hear me? Doctor Marcus, hello?"
Even Patient S's mother was surprised.
The doctors and men all shook hands at the breakthrough
And Patient S had tears in her eyes.
They interviewed S, asked her perspective,
She said so many saw her body defective,
But the body she had was "granted by God",
She was truly unique, that's why she seemed odd
She said she was glad when her Mum took her phone,
Although she was stiff, and her legs felt cold,
With the freedom to talk, she did not feel alone,
She said "Now I can walk in my soul".
But don't yet rejoice, it would be in haste,
For you see, there's a few more facts in this case.
Just a week later, she shocked her physicians,
When she died... "choked on water", reports the mortician
Although S was deceased, the device kept speaking.
"Perhaps one day, I'll be able to dance," it said
That's when all the doctors began to start freaking.
How is she speaking? She's dead!
But even after the wires were cut,
Their talking device still wouldn't shut up!
They couldn't explain how it worked with her gone—
But then, Doctor Marcus found her old phone.
One last desperate message on the girl's phone read
<<Someone please help me thats not wat I said>>
the talking machine that they thought they'd perfected,
Had drowned out her screams with the words they'd expected,
They'd committed the sin, like so many before,
For the differently abled among us,
She was not speaking through; she'd been spoken for...
when we confuse what they suffer for justice
Although you may think I declare it in haste,
I think that is the crucial fact in this case:
When we fail to listen, all we do is supress.
That's the Fact in this case of Patient S.
