This is a short story I wrote... it takes some imagination to understand what's going on... and I know it still needs revision, so, I'd like you all to help me with that!
Sight... I despise Sight. I watched as she raised one of her "eyebrows" at me. Eyebrows? as if those gosh darn eyes weren't bad enough.
Smell walked up to the dreadfully pleased with herself sense, looking slightly confused, "Sight, what are those thingies?"
With her "eyes" Sight looked directly upward, "Oh, these? a little decoration I thought of, for my eyes," her eyes, pah, the most pathetic excuse for an original idea I had ever seen in my entire life.
"Oh, alright," poor old Smell had no idea what to do with himself, "Pretty," he murmured, and walked away.
I sighed, this was difficult. The other four senses had completed their tasks easily, one by one, starting with sight who grabbed the simplest idea within hours of our arrival in this cavern an entire week ago. Hear had just finished his last night. A fantastic plan, slightly undermined by Sight and her eyes. Smell had come up with a very original idea, with the nose and all, and had worked hard and long, finishing quickly. We all knew that Taste had grossly plagiarized Smell's idea, although I have to admit she had reached a whole different level of smelling with "taste buds", which I had gotten the chance to try out. I had actually gotten the chance to try all four senses out myself. I was Touch, the slow sense among the five of us.
I thought of hearing. It was incredible, just hearing the little noises, footfalls, breathing, the crinkling of paper, wind. I was considering asking Hear to try on a couple of his "ears", perhaps it would help me think, but when I turned to find him I immediately changed my mind.
"Try some on, it's weird, they kind of sting," I watched Sight press a couple of eyes into Hear's mid-head.
"Yeah, I see what you mean, maybe we could change them up a bit," He removed the eyes, blinding himself. The other four of us agree that sight greatly eases things, but Hear seems to think it just gets in the way of all the wonderful sounds. I wish I could agree with him, I'd rather be on his side a thousand times more than Sight's.
"I guess that's what we're going to have to," Sight said with a bit of a giggle.
Hear aimed an ear slightly towards her, "Wow," he whispered almost under his breath, "That's a great sound."
I just ignored the two of them and went back to trying hard to think of a good idea. I had a single lead I had been able to stick with so far. Touch of course is what the sense will be called if I ever come up with it. I tried hard to think outside the box, something that will always be there, always affecting you, I could feel it, I knew I had something here, but what? It was impossible to catch whatever I was chasing, touch, the fifth sense, it was always just out of reach.
I imagined a person, imagined a small shadow around the person, and made things fly into the shadow, the person was unaware the things existed until they entered the shadow. A knife, sharp, damaging, as soon as it enters the shadow the person knows: bad. An ice cube, cold, if held to a persons skin too long hurtful. Once it enters the shadow the person knows: cold.
It's really good, I told myself, but you aren't going to get much further on your own, I knew Hear could help me, probably with great enthusiasm.
I watched him and Sight. Any not-totally clueless individual could see that she was flirting with him, flirting in a very clever way with her humming, and whistling, and snapping, and gosh, darn, giggling, but not clever enough to have any affect on Hear. Sight didn't seem to mind, she was probably enjoying herself with Hear constantly complementing her ability to make noises.
I frowned at Hear, I'm lonely! I thought desperately, I'm lonely, and way way far behind, and upset, and Sight's a manipulative jerk, so come help me! Any type of plea for help besides sounds of some sort weren't going to work, especially the kind of plea for help that happened in my thoughts.
I thought about just going and asking him straight up and simple, but the horrifying proximity to Sight scared me away in a way that made me feel week and pathetic.
After a moments thought, an idea occurred to me. I whispered so quietly no one would know, "Hear, ditch Sight and come help me!" I didn't know Hear all-that-well, but the first few days when we were both working at about the same point he had talked to me an increasing amount. It seemed with the completion of his sense he had completed his affiliation with me too. Then again, maybe not.
I looked carefully at the pair of senses, Hear went a little still, and said, "I'm gonna go check out how Touch is doing," I silently cheered. Thank goodness for Hears super accute hearing.
Hear approached me and muttered, "Having trouble?"
I nodded, "Yup, well, look I have this idea..." I explained to him the shadow thing, he seemed very intrigued, even impressed with my idea.
"All right," Hear took a few seconds to think, "This is good," he nodded, "Yeah, I see what we can do with this," He seemed on the edge of it all, ready to burst open with ideas, "So, like sort of a coating, that gives different signals for different things it feels, tells if something's too hot, or too sharp, or if they're applying to much pressure."
He nodded happily, I nodded along with him, "Yeah, that's totally what I was going for."
"And," He added in a loud excited voice, "You could do kind of what Taste did with, the buds?" he took another moment to think, in that moment probably ten new thoughts flowed into his mind, "Touch buds! Or, you can come up with the name, whatever. But not just in your mouth, put them everywhere!"
I gave him a slightly critical look, "Oh gosh, lets not copy Smell, poor old guy..."
Hear shook his head, "No, we aren't copying smell at all, the Taste buds were Taste's idea totally, and she deserves to be knocked off, since she did it to Smell!"
"Okay," I nodded, "but, still, I’m thinking more like a bug suit… like... a skin."
Hear nodded, "That's good, really… Skin, great idea."
I grinned at him, "Well, you helped a bunch…”
Hear shook his head, "I could never have come up with it," he smiled in such a sweet way. It annoyed the crap out of me that such a sweet guy was the very goal of an evil sense like Sight.
I looked over at Sight who had been watching us with her the entire time, she was frowning hard. I felt like taunting her, but decided to leave it be. If she caught me being snooty she would surely lure Hear away with a chorus of staged laughter.
Hear's a smart guy, he'll make the right choice. I smiled fondly at him, he of course couldn't see and didn't respond.
I don't think the ending is very strong... but I didn't know what else to say... I hope you all liked it!
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TabbyGirl
