Chapter 5.1 - Synesthesia

As Claire sat on the little stone bench by the pond, listening to the song of the frogs late in the afternoon, she was suddenly struck by the realization that she could smell the shrill scent of violet. Not the scent of purple violets, or that of the humid air filtered through the purple rain clouds, but that of violet itself, in a range of  frequency that ran slightly higher than that which humans are normally able to perceive.

She had read somewhere that birds and bees and fish and cats, and even people who underwent eye lens replacement surgery, had the ability to perceive ultraviolet as a color, but she’d never heard of anybody being able to smell it before.

If somebody asked her to describe its scent she wouldn’t have been able to, much like any of us can’t describe the taste of bread to someone who has never tasted food before. People need a common frame of reference for experiences, that’s what entices us to create language, so we can share the ways in which we are alike. Society assigns no value to experiences that are so unique they can’t be shared.

“What is it, bebelle?” Grandmother probed Claire with eyes that seemed to reach all the way to the core of her being.

“If I tell you, do you promise me you won’t think I’m delusional?” Claire attempted a pointless request for a guarantee.

“If I thought you were delusional, would you rather I kept that to myself?” Grandmother teased.

“In fact I would, yes,” Claire frowned.

Grandmother was still staring at her, waiting for an answer to her question.

“Do you think one can smell color?”

“It’s been known to happen,” Grandmother nodded. “Can you smell color?”

“I was just curious,” Claire avoided the question. “Those…people who experienced it, did they share any details?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t pay too much attention to that,” Grandmother continued, rather distracted. It seemed fairly clear that was not a subject of conversation of any interest to her. She remembered something and turned to her granddaughter. “It’s been known to happen to people under the influence of mind altering substances,” she hinted to her befuddled granddaughter, who looked like a possible candidate for this kind of situation. “Sometimes it can even be a warning of brain abnormalities.”

“Great job, Claire!” the young woman chided herself. “That should teach you to put a filter between your brain and your mouth. Drugs? Really? I guess that beats having brain abnormalities.”

Grandmother noticed that she looked really hurt and backed away from the subject.

“But not exclusively. On rare occasions the brain creates pathways between areas that are not usually connected to each other, and that generates synesthesia. I don’t suppose you can call it a different sense in the real meaning of the word, smelling colors is still smelling.”

“No it isn’t!” Claire’s tongue was burning to contradict her, but she held it, for once, demonstrating a level of restraint which boosted her self-respect.

“Whatever brought that up, bebelle?” Grandmother continued. She was still puzzled by the strange subject of conversation; she gave it a few seconds’ thought and then shrugged it off as an idiosyncrasy of the artistic mind and started planning activities for the remainder of the day. “You know, if you found yourself something useful to do you wouldn’t have time to dwell on this kind of stuff.”

“This is just great!” Claire continued the inner train of thought of her current discontent. “One day if I get busy enough maybe I’ll be able to stop thinking altogether. Way to better myself!” She remembered from her infrequent but educational yoga classes that it was in fact the cessation of activity which led to the cessation of thinking, and not its opposite, and she couldn’t help smile at the irony of the advice.

The scent of violet bathed her consciousness again, strong and pervasive, refusing to be dismissed. The strangest thing about it was that she couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from: it seemed to emanate from a very close source which was right in front of her and which followed her around wherever she turned. It made her elated and anxious at the same time, like the glimpse in the mirror at dawn, the kind of feeling one has when one stumbles upon the sight of things one didn’t know existed, and one can’t tell whether they’re safe or deadly, but one can’t take one’s eyes off of them anyway, mesmerized by their unexpected presence. 

This presence, this otherness, was right there in front of her now, she had no doubt about it, so close that she could touch it if she stretched out her hand, close enough that she was always within its reach too, a terrifying thing to experience about things one cannot see. In a way she was grateful for this extra sense, which, despite her grandmother’s generalization was to smell as wind is to a racing car: at least it allowed her to perceive the presence and the movements of this, whatever it was, when it was there. 

It had not occurred to Claire that her unusual genetic makeup might have imparted on her abilities that were outside the normal human range, just as it had taken away from her abilities that every normal person takes for granted, thus making her always feel like she didn’t fit in. 

“You are different, Claire,” Grandmother commented, as if she’d read her thoughts. “I might not be the best person to ask these questions. I…don’t think we’re alike enough for that.”

The elusive scent of violet lingered around her for the rest of the evening, drawing out memories long forgotten, contradictory feelings impossible to reconcile, sadness and unrest, inexplicable giddiness, glimpses of extraordinary beauty and sudden bursts of vexation so irritating she could barely refrain from jumping out of her chair during dinner and leaving without a word. 

After three agonizing hours, which felt like an eternity, she would have gladly exchanged this all consuming experience for anything borderline normal, anything that would lift the crushing weight of the larger reality which had come to bear upon her soul. But there was no denying its existence or avoiding its demands, because the truth had found Claire, and when the truth finds you, you can never escape it again.

It still smelled like violet when she passed by the mirrors on the way to her room and saw the shadows reflected in them. They looked so harmless now, compared to this inner struggle, that she acknowledged them like one notices the trees bending in the wind, or a passing butterfly gently touching the tops of tall flowers. There were weird reflections and patterns in those mirrors, generated by the passage of the clouds and the fading light of the evening, images that under different circumstances she would have found jarring, but which in her angst she welcomed because they provided her with a moment’s distraction from this spiritual agony. 

It still smelled like violet when she went to bed, eyes filled with tears for reasons she couldn’t even understand, and it still smelled like violet when she was startled awake in the early hours of the morning by the bright rays of a giant moon peeking through her window.