#43 Synaesthesia

by Sean Fallon

“You have one of the most extreme cases of synaesthesia I’ve ever seen,” said the doctor, brightly coloured flowers growing out of his mouth with every word.

“Synaesthesia?” I said, the word slithering between my teeth as a long centipede the colour of confusion (orange with grey polka dots).

“Yes, in layman’s terms, your senses are a little confused,” the doctor tapped his finger on the table and I smelled burnt bacon. “People who have synaesthesia confuse their stimuli so that they might ascribe days of the week with personalities or see different letters as having colours.”

I looked at his name tag, which glowed like a rainbow, “I see.”

“It is an interesting ailment since a lot of people do not know that they have it. They think that seeing numbers as colours or being able to smell letters is simply how the world works.” The doctor leant forward and I got a whiff of his breath which smelled like my sister poking me in the eye when I was twelve.

“Is there a cure?” I said, the words tasting like the sound it makes when a window breaks, which for me was always a colourful sound as each strand of the spider web that the smash caused would branch off into a different ray of dazzlingly coloured light.

The doctor frowned and shook his head and the feeling of disappointment that ran through me felt like eating two scoops of strawberry ice cream with sprinkles and chocolate chips.