Have you ever thought that maybe sounds really have a shape in the ears of deaf people?
For example:
"Laughter" is an undulating wavy line;
"Thunder" is a ferocious jagged spike;
"The sound of the flute" is a slowly flowing stream;
And the "girl talk" in the orphanage is the gentlest whirlpool that melts into the ears...
But when Zhou Xuanming received a cochlear implant, he realized that the sound was not like this...