You Can't Hear Me, Can You?

Last night I dreamt about something strange. I was in a class room, for physics, I think. There was this old man there. He used to be this distinguished professor when he was younger, but now that he's old (70-80) he's a bit odd. The people in the class ignored him. (After all, they were supposed to be paying attention in class.) For some reason, he came over to talk to me. It was frustrating at first. He seemed kind of senile and difficult. And then it clicked for me. He couldn't hear me. My voice was too high. No matter how loud I spoke, he just wouldn't be able to hear my voice. When I realized this, I took out my note pad and wrote, "You can't hear me, can you?" He smiled, and echoed back my words. Other people have realized this about him in the past. We started passing notes in my note book. Somehow, pictures magically appeared as well. The more I "talked" to the man, the interesting he became. He told me about his life, which made me kind of sad. There was a picture of two dogs. For some reason, he drew hearts around one eye of each dog, and they were connected. He wrote mom and dad. I could hear his voice, but he couldn't hear mine. I wondered if he had anyone he loved outside of that parental love, or if he was a parent himself. I felt like his partner was a man who had long since left him and the world. The old man before me would teeter back and forth between being forgetful and frivolous to being serious and sharp. His name was James, but I didn't hate that name for a change. This was a different man from the one I hate.