Cynthia wedged her tongue between her front teeth and kept typing, ignoring the sharp prick of a crooked tooth. Her jaw was set and grim. Legal briefs waited for no woman, especially when the client offered a substantial bonus for getting it done a month early. Especially when her boss accepted the early deadline with eager, grasping hands, greedy to get the firm the prestige and commission. Never mind everything else on the schedule or the deadline still weeks away. Never mind that Cyn had been just outside, eating a bland turkey and cheese sandwich, enjoying the sunlight and blissfully unaware of the pressure cooker her life was about to become. Why would she need to know?
She bit down again, trying not to think about the delay in getting to what brought her alive, away from boring tweeds and cardigan sweaters in neutral colors. The tip of her tongue jolted with bright pain, but kept her from thinking of garlic and parmesan. Cyn didn’t know what she’d do when this trick stopped working to keep her focused. It’d gotten her this far, but didn’t seem to work as well as it had in college.
Legal words and Latin phrases flowed from her fingertips. These words were the boring ones, the eat-your-vegetables of writing for a living to make sure the bills were paid and her sweet Shelbie was kept in kibble. If she wasn’t careful, the words would jumble together, a salad of nouns and verbs, a dressing of adjectives, croutons of propositions that crunched dry against her tongue. Never mind that they needed salt and garlic and parmesan to come alive, to tell a compelling story. The law required both format and propriety, even if her jumble made more sense to the layman.
They’d tried to label it dyslexia, but it wasn’t. not when there were no issues with the words that poured out at night, the words she wanted to write. She was a veritable chef, the words bursting with flavor, all as part of a well-composed meal.
She’d even taken some advanced cooking classes, just to make sure she had the balance down. Sensory details about the environment were salty and popped against her tongue. Salty words brought the scene to life, made the description on the page flow just so, just as salt in real life made food taste more like itself. Careful selection was imperative. Too much, and the dish was ruined.
Emotion, though, emotion always rolled sweet across her tongue. The gooey tang of lemon curd and stiff meringue blended with a shattered crust of grief and loss. New love tasted like sweetened vanilla cream, whipped by hand until soft peaks stiffened into spoonfuls easy to share with a lover. Oh, and heartbreak; heartbreak was bitter coffee, and lessons learned, the end of a relationship just as it properly ended a meal.
The feast of words would have to wait once more. Her tongue throbbed, painful and tasting of copper from the bite Cyn had clamped down upon it. The distraction wasn’t helping again. She’d have to find something new. Enough to get through this one last brief, with a quick bonus, and then to find a job that let the words flow into a regular banquet. What would it be like, no longer having to starve when a feast was readily available?
She sighed, and studied the blinking cursor. She reached out a slim finger and leaned on the backspace key, as her flavors disappeared.
***
This week, Cedar Sanderson challenged me with “The words came out all jumbled together, a salad of nouns and verbs with a dressing of adjectives and croutons of prepositions.” Nother Mike turned out to be the Viking I proposed he write about this week, and may his experiences next week be less eventful.
Also, I don’t know anyone with synesthesia, nor do I have it myself. I’d love to be corrected if I got this wrong.
