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Synesthesia

By E. E. King

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I am somewhere between Los Angeles and the land of make-believe.

I was driving back to L.A when I saw this prodigious rainbow, a rainbow that traveled, through all the myriad of light spectra between infrared and ultraviolet.

The weird thing is that I can see every hue, tone and light wave. Colors that are usually only visible to bees and birds are now obvious to me.

Pulling over, eyes on the rainbow I get out of the car, aware and completely alive, for what seems like the first time in my life.

Surrounded by mist, sun and that amazing rainbow, I yank off my shoes and stroll through the meadow. Like a butterfly, my feet taste the grasses, flowers and earth which are rich with fragrance, flavor and harmony.

RINGGGGGGGGGGG ER RIGGGGGGGGG ER RINGGGGGGGGGG.

Startled out of sleep, remembered scents and sounds reverberating inside my head, I hit the alarm and lie for a moment, letting the sweet unremembered memory of the dream engulf me just one moment longer. I have been washed clean by last night’s dream.

Then body involuntarily stretching, I lazily swing my legs over the bed.

The minute my feet touch the floor; I taste dust and dirt.

In unbelieving, horrified reflex I abruptly raise my feet, and the flavor fades.

I remain frozen, feet half-extended from my bed in an awkward pose, a mime poised on an invisible chair, brain whirling.

Cautiously I lower my feet and gingerly tap one toe to the floorboards.

Once again I taste dust.

 My feet shoot up in alarm, suspended awkwardly.

Slowly I lower my legs, but I don’t touch the floor.

My mind is reeling, churning thought and sensation with the random relentlessness of a dryer on spin cycle. 

Reaching over, still careful to keep my feet elevated I wrap my fingers around the water glass by my bedside table.

I carefully set the glass on the floor. 

Tentatively I touch toe to glass, feeling…no, tasting the smooth coolness of glass. My mind is numb, warily I dip my big toe tip into water. I taste the cool, flavorless liquid….

My eyes involuntarily rolled upward, as if they could look inside.

Was I still dreaming? Had my biology somehow been morphed by night imaginings?

Nonetheless, I still have to go to work, tasting feet or no tasting feet.

It is only in the movies where characters seemed to exist in a world uncontained by the confines of work. I resent those people.

I nervously lower my feet to the floor and walk over to my sock drawer, I have the decidedly unpleasant sensation that I am licking a path from bed to dresser.

“I really must mop,” I think. Sensation drowning out amazement as it so often does.

Though running late, putting on socks is no an easy task.

Not only were there the array of rayon, cotton, wool and silk to sample, I discover that argyle tastes different than stripes and that solids present a more subtle, piquant flavor.

I finally settle on a rather bland yellowish, light rayon pair, slightly reminiscent of vanilla.

Shoes are the most horrible things! I feel as though I am enclosing delicate creatures inside hot airless catacombs.

I can’t bear lacing them up, in haste I slip on some old open toed, leather huaraches and rush out the door.

I arrive at work 15 minuets late, hastily muttering incoherent somethings about traffic and accidents I settle into my cubicle and slip my feet under the desk, planning to doff the huaraches.

But Mickey Braggers, my supervisor, sees my yellow, open toed feet.

“So what’s with the new look?” yaps Mickey, slapping me a tad too heartily on the back.

“You turning into a fag or something?” Mike guffaws. I hate Mickey.

“Uh… I have… uh… I have corns, bunions, very delicate, need to be covered, yet have air… Need…”

“But they don’t need to be covered in yellow do they?”

Mickey punches me jovially on his arm, but his eyes narrow “Wouldn’t do for clients to have... uh, suspicions, you know…”

“I-I’ll wear dark tomorrow,” I stutter.

“I… this came on suddenly, emergency you know… no clean socks…” I natter lamely.

“You need to get married, Boy-o,” chuckles Mickey. Luckily, although loutish and nasty, Mickey has the attention span of a retarded wombat; he has already lost interest in my yellow feet and wanders off.

Mickey has sprung from the pages of Animal Farm.

He appears to have undergone an imperfect metamorphosis from pig to man.

His skeleton is encased in a heavy suit of fat.

His eyes are tiny, watery and caked with gooey yellow. His nose is so upturned that it provides an unwelcome voyeuristic view into his nasal canals.

His skull is thinly covered by baby-fine golden down.

***

For a week my feet taste… and then the sensation begins to fade away, at first it is almost imperceptible… but each day it lessens, until one day I awake, all flavor returned to my mouth.

I miss it, the joys of sampling a newly mowed lawn, the luxury of a hot, fragrant bubble bath, the softness of angora.

But there is nothing I can do… it has gone and left me.

That night I am driving home when I see this prodigious rainbow, a rainbow that travels through all the spectra between infrared and ultraviolet.

I pull over and get out of the car, in a meadow, aware and completely alive.

I am surrounded by mist, sun and that amazing rainbow. 

The air is full of the scents of flowers, as well as something else. I can’t tell you how I know, but plants being eaten by insects or birds send hormones through the air that attract predators, somehow I know that is what I smell. The air is heavy with the fragrance. 

RINGGGGGGGGGGG ER RIGGGGGGGGG ER RINGGGGGGGGGG. 

I startle out of sleep and involuntarily sniff the air.

Scents waft through my window, some enticing some repellent.

I can smell hormones, pheromones, the distant sexual callings of moths; the musky signals of squirrels. Like a male squirrel, I can sense the females in heat for a mile around. Flowers are summoning fertilization or requesting protection.

Am I crazy?

That day at work is the first time I smell Mickey, the real Mickey, not the cloying cologne that covers his human/animal scent of oil, meats, gases and longings.

It is not a pleasant smell.

I identify all of my office mates by their aroma.

I discover myself privy to a myriad of secrets.

Ester Pidgin is menstruating. Sara Heyburn is almost always horny. Francis Gonzales is going through menopause. Gil Bishop has diabetes. Eric Bergamo drinks cough syrup covertly through out the day. Jack Alan, in spite of his newlywed status, isn’t getting any and Mickey Braggers has Jose, the shy, skinny, dark errand boy, give him blow jobs in the stairwell.

I also smell myself, I like the smell. I fight an almost continual urge to leave scent markings wherever I can.

I take clandestine night runs, pausing to urinate in empty alleyways and unobserved avenues.

One night, while urinating behind a trash can in a park, I see this prodigious rainbow.

I am in a meadow.

The meadow is full of mists and moonlight producing, rainbows that ranged in color from red to infrared, from purple to bee purple (ultraviolet color that usually only bees can see) yellow to bee yellow. I see the light.

RINGGGGGGGGGGG ER RIGGGGGGGGG ER RINGGGGGGGGGG. 

I awake seeing shades I had never seen before and hues I had never imagined, for whom among us can picture an unknown color?

White flowers contain hitherto invisible markings and signs, the air radiates with iridescence.

It’s amazing!

Colors hover in the air and there is no white.

White contains all, white is infinite.

White is a rainbow.

Returning to work, I cannot concentrate.

Mickey’s meaty face, floats above the psychedelic button-down of his formerly white shirt front captures all my attention. I can not focus on, or even comprehend the meaningless drivel that leaks from his mouth.

And that night I watch the wall. I can no longer watch TV because it is too distracting. The wall contains refractions of light and color. The air is lazy with the cacophony of cicadas, the croaking of frogs and high reverberations and low tickling that usually only bats or dogs can hear, but I hear them, separate and clear.

I wake up on the couch. All my senses are going full blast. I am completely aware. Every breath has myriad scents, every step is a buffet. sounds and colors are infinite in variety and constancy.

I can’t shut out the sound of plants growing, the smell of moth pheromones, the ultraviolet of white flowers or the taste of my socks.

I am exhausted; I can’t even call in sick to work, because the reverberations of the telephone are too painful.

At night I slink outside and clandestinely urinate on my fence, turning to sniff, I see the horrified face of my neighbor peering at me from his window.

Humiliated and embarrassed, I slink upstairs to my apartment, trying to overlook the fantasia kaleidoscope of colors screaming at me from the walls, attempting to ignore the incessant cacophony in the air, straining not to heed the myriad scents bombarding me, pretending not to taste the spicy salsa of my checkered socks.

I creep through the door, worn out with the effort to disregard the howling world. Obeying the cry of an unknown instinct I strip off my clothes, I just barley manage to suppress an almost overwhelming urge to pee on my hated shoes and crawl into my closet.

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