Title: Speak
Sep. 22nd, 2024 03:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swirlsofpurple“We’re approaching the nebula.”
“Oh, okay.”
“It’s completely safe now, there are safeguards, and we’re only going to be inside for a bit.”
“I know. I know. It’s more of a respect thing, a memory thing, that we don’t go through.”
“You don’t look like it’s just a memory thing.”
“Okay, maybe a bit of healthy superstition too.”
“Tell me a story.”
“What?”
“Come on, it will take your mind off of it.”
*
“This isn’t synaesthesia.”
The interviewer keeps his mid-nose and right-nose still, but the left nose twitches, giving him away, “We know this might be a little out of the wheel-house of a typical synaesthesia expert, which is why we asked you to interview for this position. We figured you would be up for the challenge.”
“Isn’t there someone else more suitable for this, a linguistics expert maybe?”
“We already have a linguist. But there isn’t exactly a field of study for beings who speak with sounds.”
“Hmm. Thank you for the opportunity, but I’m unable to accept.”
“This is not the sort of opportunity people turn down.” The interviewer reeks of desperation.
“I think plenty of people already have turned it down. No synaesthesia expert in their right mind would risk crossing the Castron nebula for something which isn’t even related to our field. Many of our kind died investigating the strange place which made people see sounds and hear colours, and scores more lost their minds. The general populace may have forgotten. But we have not. Even the youngest in our field know the haunting stories, know to be wary and respectful.”
“How about if I increase the credits on offer by fifty percent?”
“Tell me about these beings. How do they mainly communicate? Their language can’t be very sophisticated if it’s through sounds.”
“On the contrary, they have hundreds of different languages, all with thousands of words.”
“Thousands of words?! Made with only sounds?”
“Yes, they have the ability to hear minute differences in sounds which allow this. I’m sure if you told them we have sophisticated language comprised only of smells, they would be just as disbelieving.”
“Increase the credits by two hundred percent and I will accept.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“Not really.”
All three of the interviewer’s noses are twitching now. “A one hundred percent increase.”
“It’s a deal.”
*
“And we’re inside the nebula. So you took this post for the money?” the linguist asks.
“Yes and no. From all the information gathered, I suspect there are members of this species who also suffer from synaesthesia. Imagine it, the chance to study the experience in a completely different species and compare it to our own.”
“What a hustler.”
“All part of the game… I can see shapes.”
“What?”
“The engine sounds are making shapes.”
“Funny. You’re very funny. The safeguards would stop it.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“Checking safeguards. They’re in full working order.”
The sounds are shapes. The smells are sounds. The colours are smells. It’s very disorienting, and yet orienting. A chance to experience what he’s been looking at from the outside all this time.
The nebula speaks. This is your home. This is where you belong. We are your brethren. Join us.
It feels true. It feels right. He’s floating. He sees- smells -his body dead-eyed.
The linguist is shaking him. “Come back. Come back.”
An almost forgotten thought. He has a purpose, a reason, a mission. He floats back.
“I can’t hold on.”
“We’re almost out. Just focus on me. There are intriguing facets of their languages. They have these things called names.”
“Names.”
“Yeah, they each have an individual one they’re called by.”
“I can hear you. Your words are sounds.”
“Just thirty more units ‘til we’re at the outer edge.”
“And all the names are different?”
“Some of them are the same.”
“That seems confusing… I’m not going to make it.”
“Only ten more units. I guess it works for them.”
He feels himself begin to float away.
“And we’re out.”
He crashes back down, slumping in relief. “Way too close. Should’ve respected the stories.”
no subject
Date: 2024-09-23 06:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-23 05:36 pm (UTC)