SHADOWS IN THE EYE

Mornings on the Markt in Valkenswaard sounded like gulls from the fens south of the town, and smelled variegatedly like cigar tobacco fermenting, coffee, and terpeneols. The word variegated in the strict sense refers solely to colours and hues, but to the person with synesthesia, applying that to odours is quite valid.

Perhaps I should also mention that things sound different without those colours; coffee, seagulls, creosote. In memory, the light was more flickersome there, then.

There is evidence that synesthesia is indicative of Aspergers.
A location on the spectrum at least.
I am not so sure.

I'm normal.

My morning routine is the same, but different.

Coffee, news. Outside for a long smoke. Then back, and another coffee. After shave and a shower, the day can truly begin. Back then it was highschool, and for two years algebra the first period. Now, on my work days, heading over to the bus stop, and steeling my loins for eight hours of dealing with defective humans, mostly men, all of them Karen.

I cannot recall my highschool classmates as being defective, at least not severely so.

They smelled mostly of dark shag rolling tobacco.


I doubt that I could recapture the light. Crystal silver. Things smell very different now, more reddish. Also, my tobacco tastes have changed; Virginias and Virginia flakes, some Perique. Gnome-like, what fur feels like in the mind. Then, Balkan blends (mental images of moss and lubricative substances in the wheels), or before that Baai Tabak (cedar, pencil shavings, drafting equipment). There is a softness to the light now: yellow roses, silk.

I think the coffee tastes different too.



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