That New Car Smell Challenge Post by kailhofer » August 01, 2010, 02:36:13 AM The challenge was to tell the tale of a person with a near super-human ability in just one of his or her senses. The story had to be told in first person from the perspective of an assistant, henchman, or opponent to the person with the extra ability. Top User avatar kailhofer Editor Emeritus Posts: 3245 Joined: January 01, 1970, 11:00:00 AM Location: Kaukauna, Wisconsin (USA) Contact: Contact kailhofer That New Car Smell Challenge Post by kailhofer » August 01, 2010, 02:37:13 AM Synesthete By: Casey Callaghan I must disagree. There's nothing 'intrinsic' about the human perception of colour at all. What you see in your mind's eye when I say "red" and what I see in my mind's eye when I say "red" may be completely different, and we'd never know. Think about colour-blindness for a moment; a colourblind person is either seeing red very differently, or seeing green very differently, or more likely both. Yes, I'll admit that a colourblind person can use an instrument to measure the wavelength of light and thus tell red and green apart. But what instrument will tell you the colour of the number four? No, not the colour of a specific printed digit. The intrinsic colour of the number itself. Most people don't even realise that numbers have colours; that's because most people are colourblind. My brother Sam is one of the few who aren't. The doctor calls it synesthesia, but the way he's always put it is that he feels like the only man who can see colour in a colourblind world. Four is a sort of yellowy ochre, by the way. Letters, too; A is always red, for example. ...no, if you write 4 in blue in he'll still recognise it as blue ink. He tells me that it's the ink that's blue, but the four is yellowy ochre. Yes, I have asked. No, Sam was seeing the colour of letters and numbers before anyone even knew about the Pox. He was one of the first to decode their messages, incidentally. I remember I once tried painting a picture for him, when I was five, using a scalable pattern fill to copy small letters and numbers over an area. I think he's still got it somewhere. Anyhow, it turns out that that's what the Pox were doing, more or less. I remember the furore when it was first discovered. A clear message from space; just over fifty thousand numbers, delivered as groups of from one to sixteen radio pulses, short gap between numbers then a big gap and the message repeats. At first dozens, then hundreds, of people tried for months to figure it out; then thousands; finally they put the entire sequence out on the internet. The only even vaguely relevant thing that anyone had found out before then was that the number of numbers was a perfect square. 'Course, some people tried writing them out in a square and looking for patterns in the columns. Found all sorts of stuff, none relevant. Sam took one look at the square and said "It's three somethings with four arms and wings." Oh, he wasn't the first - that was that guy in the Ukraine, by about four hours. Turns out there are enough synesthetes worldwide that figured it out that no-one could hide it had happened. Of course, once we knew what the secret was, it was dead easy to figure out the rest; this message was their equivalent of Pioneer. Pioneer had a silhouette of male and female humans; this one had three silhouettes, all with slight differences that no-one knows how significant they are or what they mean. They worked out where the Pox message came from and radioed one back, of course. Radioed a lot back over the past seventeen years. Best we can tell, the Pox got our first replies about eight and a bit years ago. That is, if they were still looking for replies at that time. Which means we should be getting their reply back any day now. Sam says he can't wait to see their idea of art. [align=center]The End[/align] Top User avatar kailhofer Editor Emeritus Posts: 3245 Joined: January 01, 1970, 11:00:00 AM Location: Kaukauna, Wisconsin (USA) Contact: Contact kailhofer That New Car Smell Challenge Post by kailhofer » August 01, 2010, 02:37:57 AM The Smell of Death By: Sergio Palumbo Smell of rain. Smell of trees… I go down the slope, following Max, my dog. The ground under me is slippery, full of autumn leaves. My old comrade Harry is after me, his dog, Jake, preceeding him. Then, we stop. Jake stops too, staying near his Master. The nose game of the day is going to start… -Good boy, Max-I tell my dog putting my left hand on him.My touch is special, I need only to brush him to make Max comprehend everything at once.It’s an unusual ability, no other man possesses as far as I know.Well, actually Harry has got his own special skill,too, as he could even look at the ground in the distance magnifying a single detail by using his upgraded sight…All of us are veterans from the Army and obviously our labs had made some strange experiments upon us…but when they discovered our abilities were not enough for their purposes, we were simply “discarded”, they had had some better results with a few younger soldiers. We were allowed to maintain our physical “improvements”, anyway… Actually, to successfully complete the game my dog- or Harry’s dog- are to find the ball one friend of us had buried in the woods before. Well, I can “guide” - using my special touch - my dear dog almost everywhere I want to, so I have only to figure out where that is and make him go for it. On the other hand, Harry may see where there are traces in the ground or footsteps even very far from here and try to convince his dog to go exactly to that place…. That could looks like a fair game, but it isn’t.Max, too, possesses a special ability. His olfaction is more evoluted and augmented than common dogs’ sense of smell… probably because of the experiments they did upon him while operating for the Army. In the end, we have more chances than them… -Now I count on you: find the ball! Good boy!- I tell Max and then gently put my young hands on the shaded sable furry pelt of his elongated head. On my mark he begins running. Jake hurries, too, after him… Past the trees, after the potholes on the path, the dog perfectly knows where he is to go… Jake is following, his sense of smell is very good too, but not as good as Max’s! But, while going away, my dog begins perceiving another weird smell, a smell he had already sensed before…. ”Oh, my!” I think “It’s that kind of stench…” I know something is going to happen…Max’s olfaction never misses…!He turns his head to the left and to the right, his eyes stumble on grey and white Jake, approaching: It’s him! “What could I do?” I consider “How ever could I prevent all that from occurring only in a few seconds from now…?”Max looks at Jake and Jake looks at him in return: he goes a few steps forward, then back, trying to figure out why my dog stays and doesn’t run anymore. He puts his brown eyes on Jake, in silence, the smell coming from his pelt becoming stronger and stronger…It’s near, it’s now!Jake puts his rear extremities into a bad place, very slippery, his front paws lose their grip and begin falling down the slope, very fast. An unstoppable tumble. He barks, flails, but everything he does can’t thwart what’s going on… In the end there is a plonk, and the cries cease. Jake’s head has hit a big rock at the bottom of the slope, he does breath no more. Harry, my friend, arrives, looking for his dog fallen, saying- Damn’!- And then the man curses the wind. I swear, too, looking at Max and patting on his head to calm him at once. But Jake is dead. That kind of smell can never be mistaken, nor forgotten. I am sure Max knew that in advance, but there was nothing he could do. ***************************************************** One month from then, Max sits near my armchair at home, his four paws laid on the cold floor. It’s late evening and I’m watching TV. He looks at him and my quiet blue eyes reassure him: he knows that in a matter of minutes I will stand up, going to the potting shed in the garden to attend my usual business, after which I will be in the kitchen to make dinner for both of us. As soon as I step out of the living room, he surges forward, raises my head and waits in silence. Max religiously keeps following with his brown eyes my feet walking away: only on my mark he’ll go after me. But, unexpectedly, something happens: Max senses again that smell, that kind of stench…He runs out, goes to the shed outside and looks at it, worried. In silence he enters the wooden outbuilding and finds myself at work on my hunting gun: I am just cleaning it for the next day. Max seems to be sensing that smell again…: I know that it’s the smell of death only he may “feel”! He barks, yelps, trying to make me look at him, to stop what I’m presently doing. But I can only look at him in return, smiling, nothing else. Then the shot is inadvertently fired… An accident, a damn’ accident, the bullet is thrown out of the gun barrel and violently hit me while working on it! The smell of blood, the smell of gunpowder, the smell of death, again!Max whines, runs about, tries to call to anyone. But there is nothing he can do. If only he could, he would cry, shedding all his tears on the ground, desperate for his Master’s death. But he can’t cry. Dogs may only mourn alone. [align=center]The End[/align] Top User avatar kailhofer Editor Emeritus Posts: 3245 Joined: January 01, 1970, 11:00:00 AM Location: Kaukauna, Wisconsin (USA) Contact: Contact kailhofer That New Car Smell Challenge Post by kailhofer » August 01, 2010, 02:38:34 AM A Breakfast of Champions By: Michele Dutcher “I doubt it, Dezmond.” I looked down at the human's face, shaking my head in disagreement as we hiked along the moonlit trail. “I can hear the cynicism in your voice, my huge, fiery friend, but my statistical memory is impeccable. If you take a person 20 miles away from their place of birth, and tell them to point towards home, 78% of humans will point in the correct direction.” I flexed my wings twice before giving in a little. “I guess it's possible for humans to do something useful. However, that means your kind would head in the wrong direction 12% of time.” Dezmond snickered, slightly. “You seem to distrust me so much, Simon. Have I ever lied to you?” I looked at him, almost shooting fire from the audacity of this statement. “Of course you have. I know you can't help it, being a lawyer and all.” “Please! I prefer to think of myself as a man of letters: a person of leisure who has fallen on difficult times and been forced into a bourgeois life using my mastery of languages, common and foreign.” There was silence between us for a moment as Dezmond looked around. “I think our journey has us quickly approaching a town. Perhaps, in case we meet others, you should do your magic and downsize your reptilian presence into a less horrendous form.” “You mean make myself small...” “Exactly, yes.” And so I did exactly that, shrinking from a dragon ten feet tall at the shoulders, down to a loveable dragon the size of a small poodle – which are good eating by the way. Tasty. Yum. Dezmond picked me up, and placed me on his shoulder. “I know it exhausts you to shrink, so let's rest.” We sat in the moonlight, upon one of the five hills overlooking the village below. We watched as one oil-lamp after another was put out, leaving just a gray silhouette of the town below us. It was so quiet, in fact, that Dezmond took out his earplugs. He took a deep breath, as though to begin a sentence, and then stopped cold. “What is it?” “Shush.” I floated upwards a little. “Can you stop all that fluttering about?” I grabbed my wingtips and landed on the soft ground with a thump. “Ouch! You know how sensitive my ears are!” “Sorry boss.” I sat quietly, trying not to breathe. “I hear money,” he whispered finally. “Someone is digging a hole – two someones in fact, named Ken and Louie.” “And..” “Who digs a hole after midnight when everyone else is sleeping?” “True, boss, true!” He reached into his pouch and threw me some fresh meat. “Let's get a room in this village.” *** Dezmond was already awake when I opened my eyes. “I found them,” he told me. “Already?” I rooted around in a nest of sheets I had made on top of the bureau. “Is it daylight yet?” “Not yet. You know how muddy sounds become when a village wakes up – better to give a good listen before that happens.” He was leaning out a window overlooking the street. “Louie and Ken are in the pokey. I heard them whispering to each other in Erithian. They robbed a pawn shop yesterday and got $7000 of the Mob's money.” “Where is it, boss? Where did they bury it?” “They weren’t talking about the location – not even to each other.” “That's bad boss. We can't get close to them while they're in jail.” Dezmond looked down the street, putting one figure to his lips. “I think opportunity is presenting itself. Four men are talking five blocks away. They are going to pay the foreigners a little visit and get their money back. They need an interpreter. And now they’re saying something that they were once the #1 Snooker team in the county. I will go to the sheriff, introduce myself, and by nightfall the money will be ours.” *** The office section of the jail was small, especially for a sheriff, four mobsters, two prisoners, Dezmond and myself – so the sheriff accepted a bribe and left. The mob boss pulled out a gun. “Tell them I will let them live if they tell me where the money is.” Dezmond nodded and began speaking in Eritian. “Ken, he says tell him where the money is or he'll kill you. Louie, in two minutes I'll make a deal with you.” Louie puffed up. “I will never betray my partner.” “And I will never tell you where I hid the money,” said Ken. “They say they will never tell you where the money is.” The angry man put the gun's barrel beside Ken's temple and drew back the hammer. The foreigner began to speak hurriedly. “We buried the money below the oak tree, behind the barbershop!” Dezmond turned to the Mob boss and said coolly, “He says he'll never tell you where the money is, and you don't have the stones to pull the trigger.” The boss blew the man's head off. Dezmond looked at the little guy in back. “Are we partners now?” he asked in Erithian. Louie furiously nodded yes. Dezmond turned to me and said 'now'. Finally! I could feel my body growing as I began to spit fire at the four gangsters. A second ball of fire blew out a wall of the jail. Dezmond and Louie ran out through the smoldering hole, eager to grab shovels and get out of town with the $7000. But I decided to stick around for a bit – how could I pass up a breakfast of champions? Tasty. Yum. [align=center]The End[/align] Top User avatar kailhofer Editor Emeritus Posts: 3245 Joined: January 01, 1970, 11:00:00 AM Location: Kaukauna, Wisconsin (USA) Contact: Contact kailhofer That New Car Smell Challenge Post by kailhofer » August 01, 2010, 02:39:18 AM THE SENSE OF IT ALL By: Richard Tornello © 2010 “When I was a youngster I had an extraordinary sense of touch. I remember being able to taste almost anything through my fingers. I’m talking about food, metals, and even feelings. It was so weird. I never spoke about it. I didn’t know how to handle this gift.” “The first time it happened, I was playing with my brother and a friend. We picked up some pennies and I could taste the copper. They were copper then, as was silver and nickel. I asked them if they felt anything when they touched the money.” “They said no. Had they affirmed my senses, in themselves, I probably would have asked my mom to explain. But already aware, that being different brought on repercussions, I remained quiet.” “As I matured, the gift of touch never left me. I could tell a lot about a person by a hand shake and I’m not talking about limp wrist or bone crushers. My parents always wondered about my resistance to certain members of my family. One hug and I knew if something was wrong, not warped, necessarily, simply not right and the feeling was off-putting. Especially; think about it, if you’re a kid.” “I come to see you, as my dearest friend. I resigned from my career that had become so evil that I couldn’t even state I was a part time Buddhist, considering the rule for Right Occupation. I thought you might be able to help.” **** “Those were the words he used on the interview. He offered me his gift for my medical facility. I have a General Family Practice. I needed an office manager too with strong science schooling. He had the management experience. And he was a dear friend. I didn’t care about the gift as he called It.” “I remembered when we were in high school he was the only guy I didn’t sleep with. He was always there for me. In fact now I do recall, he did have a way with the massages. He always knew what was bothering me too. He was able to take away the pain.” “Little did I ever imagine he was telling the truth.” “With that in mind I paid for the medical assistant training and license. He never really required the certifications. He had skills beyond any doctor I had ever met. It was magical. I was in awe. If I wasn’t married I think I would have fallen in love with him.” “That man would bring a cup of water to a patient. With a light physical interaction, a finger, brushed against the patient, he had the diagnosis. It was uncanny. He never took credit. He did it for me he said. I was his only true friend through all these years. It was a pay-back.” “It was something else!” “My husband thought he was a gold mine. ‘You should expand the business.’ So I did. I promoted him so he could accompany me on my hospital rounds. He never said anything. He simply nodded, helped with the examinations, and once out of the room wrote it down. “Here are his diagnoses. Amazing, every last one, correct, and not one test. No human can do that. ” “I did notice, as the business grew, he began to give me strange glances. Nothing that was bad or evil. He gave me a touch on the hand, then would step back and look at me with some surprise. What’s wrong? I would ask him.” “Nothing, no nothing at all.” “Be straight with me, I finally demanded.” “As he put it, ‘You know I can read body, and mind, with a touch. I’ve been able to do that since I was a kid. Some how the wiring in my skin and some connections in my brain created a hypersensitive condition from birth. I can taste with my fingers too.” “You may not know this but I saw my own conception as a wordless dream from my earliest memory until that biology class on life we took in school together. Remember when I shouted out “My Dream”? You thought I was nuts. That’s when it hit me. I have a gift. I can see into people and more. I denied it all these years.” “He continued, “When I met you again, and held you I knew you have a gift too. You have strong loving.” “So I asked, “Yes I get you have a gift, call it what you want. What has this to do with that look?” “I know you and your husband’s game. It’s been difficult for me to accept. It’s become money, not health; not love as it was. Something is gone.” “We’re helping all these people. I was beginning to raise my voice, panic was setting in.” “Yes we are, no question. But you’re not even doctoring any more. You wheel me around as if I were a machine. Plug me in, touch, spit out a diagnosis, send to the specialist, and NEXT!” “I was yelling, So what?” You came to me. I gave you a chance to redeem your past transgressions, cleanse your soul, and get ready for the next jump.” I knew in my head, I the doctor, had been relegated to the assistant and technician. He was the doctor. I was jealous.” ”He said, “Yes you did. But that was then. My time here is over. I think you can manage. You’re rich now.” “He turned to leave me.” I saw red! I saw nothing. He betrayed me! My oldest and dearest friend.” “He lay bleeding with my scalpel in his neck I cried, ‘Oh, my god what have I done?’” “HE grabbed my hand and looked in my eyes. “Brain tumor, inoperable…six months maybe… sorry to wait so long to inform you.” “He died in my arms.” “I don’t need my rights read detective.” [align=center]The End[/align] Top User avatar kailhofer Editor Emeritus Posts: 3245 Joined: January 01, 1970, 11:00:00 AM Location: Kaukauna, Wisconsin (USA) Contact: Contact kailhofer That New Car Smell Challenge Post by kailhofer » August 01, 2010, 02:40:04 AM - Winner - Rank By: Bill Wolfe My father is a Bird Colonel, so waiting in the General’s antechamber ain’t nothing new to me. I’m in for an ass-chewin’, and I know it. We either screwed the pooch—big time—or we’re all heroes. And even though I’m just a snot-nosed Private, I’m the only one of the survivors who can talk, right now, so I’m going to be the one in the hot seat. The word FUBAR was invented for my situation. It reminds me of the time I got caught playing hooky from school, and Dad found out. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m not worried. I’m sweatin’ bullets. It’s just home turf. The GS says the General is ready for me. Wish me luck. “At ease, Private. And have a seat,” he says after I report in and he returns my salute. Of course, he keeps me standing at attention for a minute while he pretends to study a sheet of paper in his hand. I learned these tricks at my Daddy’s knee, but that doesn’t mean they’re not effective. Despite the AC, I feel the sweat trickle down my back as I take the only other chair in the room. Metal fold-up. His is leather, and looks like it weighs a ton. “Now, Private, I’ve read your report, and I’ve reviewed the recordings that Lieutenant . . .M’Benga made during your patrol, so I’m familiar with the basics. Good report, by the way. Much better than I’d expect from someone who’s only been in uniform for a few months.” “Thank you, Sir.” I’m waiting for it. First the compliment. That makes ‘em relax, a little. Now comes the stick. “So tell me, Private. . . .In your own words. . . .What in Hell’s holy name were you fine soldiers thinking when you violated orders, broke radio silence, and started shooting the hell out of a cave that was so small it wasn’t even on our best maps of the area? I don’t know whether to bust you all out of the Service or give you all medals.” I’d thought about how I was going to explain this. I know what worked with Dad, and I figure the General is the same. Well, here goes nothing. My career either ends right now, or I’ll be a Corporal by the end of today. “Sir, do you know why our squad’s callsign is Bloodhound?” He isn’t expecting me to answer a question with a question, and it rattles him, though he covers well. “Go on, Private. I’m listening.” I take a deep breath. “It’s Sarge, Sergeant Trollier, Sir. He’s the reason. The first thing any new recruit or new officer in our Division learns is that you never play poker with Sarge. Not for money. Some of us have to learn the hard way, but we all learn it.” “Son, I don’t see what this has to do with anything, but I’ll give you a chance to explain.” Which is just what I was hoping for. “Sir, Sarge can smell a bluff. I mean literally smell it. It’s like he has a built-in lie detector and a gypsy crystal ball, all-in-one. You can’t fool him, ever. He can tell if you’re lying, or sick, or dogging it by your smell alone. When Corporal Lansing came back from leave, Sarge took one whiff and told him someone in his family had cancer. Sure enough, when he called home he found-out his mom had been diagnosed, but they didn’t tell him because they didn’t want him to worry.” “I’m beginning to understand, Private.” And I can tell he does. “So. . . . the day of the patrol?” “Well Sir, it was a routine RECON patrol. All we knew was that they were moving HQ forward, since we’d been driving the Sku-Doleen back so fast. This valley would have been perfect for it.” “In hindsight, a little too perfect.” I wouldn’t have said it out loud to a General, but he’s right. The Skuds had been drawing us toward that place for a year, at least. It would have been a massacre, if it weren’t for Sarge. “The wind was at our backs, so Sarge didn’t smell them until we were in the trees. He knew they were there, they were all around us, but we couldn’t see anything. Those hidey holes that they built were perfect. We never did find one, till they all opened-up after we hit the cave where the one conscious Skud was bunkered. You have to give them credit, Sir. It was a beautiful ambush. Ten thousand of their best shock troops in armored suits, all zonked-out with hiberzine, barely breathing, maybe one heartbeat an hour. All just waiting for the wake-up signal. We’d have our HQ working and staffed in two, maybe three days. That one Skud in the cave wouldn’t have been found, we couldn’t even see it till we were right up on it.” “Private, I know it wasn’t your decision, but do you know why this wasn’t called-in, at this point?” “Sir, we were under radio silence for the patrol. We knew that Sarge was right, but violating orders just because one of us smelled them? No visual sighting, no actual contact?. With all due respect, General. . .would you?” “Point taken, Private. Continue.” It isn’t a request. “Well Sir, Sarge literally sniffed-out the cave where the Skud was hiding, that one had the code that woke the rest of them and when we hit him, he hit the button. That’s when the sh. . .” “Understood, Private. I have an idea what happened next.” I can’t frakkin’ believe what I was about to say. To a General, no less. Dad would have a conniption. He sits there for a few seconds, pondering. Decision time. “Your squad sprung a trap, and ruined the Sku-Doleen’s whole day. Medals it is, Corporal Tanner.” Two stripes in three months. Dad’s going to bust a gut. “Dismissed.” “Yes Sir!” [align=center]The End[/align]