Ears Have Eyes

The notes came from the dark. Over the course of a few bars, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor (Op. 64) unfolded against Felix's eardrums as it never had before.

Countless times, he had immersed himself in these same vibrations, rehearsing them to death before every performance. In this moment, however, the longitudinal waves emanating from the f-holes of his instrument seemed to propagate through their medium like ripples of fine wine. Air molecules transformed into drips of alcohol and found themselves at the gate of his tympanic membrane, desperately trying to find a pathway towards his brain to further inebriate him with the intangible beauty of music.

The pitches and their varying rhythms were no longer black and white dots on a sheet. They were no longer positions along the fingerboard. They were a frenzied dance of exquisite reverberations, weaved together into a golden string that shone under the bright light of Mendelssohn's musical prowess, a devilish prowess that reached through the ages to possess his soul...

"That will be enough."

No. The golden string, now sentient, had shaped itself into a lasso around his cochlea and wouldn't let go. Stopping would break him, bleed him, tear him apart...

"I repeat, enough for now." Dr. Lumen's faceless, somewhat threatening voice echoed in pitch blackness.

Felix blindly lifted his bow and immediately experienced the harsh symptoms of withdrawal. The air molecules had successfully inebriated him. Like every alcoholic, he craved more.

"Very good," continued Dr. Lumen, his voice still shrouded in darkness. "Olivia, you may now taste the tiramisu. Dr. Fields will assist you."

Felix next heard a clanking sound, the kind produced by a fork against a plate. Even that trivial noise seemed richer, fuller, more powerful. He found himself hoping the clanking would happen again.

"For the love of God," said Olivia. "I have never tasted something so delightful. It's magical. Almost..."

"Intoxicating, wouldn't you say?" Once again, Dr. Lumen's voice had cut through the darkness. "You may now remove your blindfolds."

All participants did as instructed and were able to see each other again. Olivia, a thirty-something chef, still held on to her plate and fork. Felix could see in her eyes a longing that wasn't there before she put on the blindfold in the first place. The third participant was an aging sommelier who kept twirling the crystal wine glass in his left hand, hoping to catch one last scent from its contents.

As for himself, he put down his violin with sadness in his soul. All sounds seemed dull again. No more waves, no more golden threads. He might as well have been surrounded by a complete vacuum, a medium-less void incapable of transmitting the slightest vibration.

"You have now experienced the full power of our state-of-the-art nanotechnology," said Dr. Lumens, staring at each of them with an obscure intent, one by one. Looking at his frizzy white hair and his large round glasses, the participants struggled not to think of him as the archetype of a mad scientist. Yet, his voice was strong and controlled. With blindfolds on, no one could detect a trace of madness from his spoken words - if madness there was.

"But... why did it stop?" asked the sommelier. "I can't smell anything. My olfaction feels worse than it was before!"

"Perhaps I need to explain it again," continued Dr. Lumens with a sigh. "The nanobots we have released in your bloodstream can target and amplify the electrical signals received from your senses as they move through your synapses. However, when your eyes are active, vision can take up to 50% of your brain's processing ability."

"So that's why you made us put on blindfolds," said Olivia. "To temporarily neutralize our sense of sight."

"Precisely," replied Dr. Lumens, satisfied that someone was finally paying attention to his diatribes. "Once sight is taken out of the equation, much of your brain's capacity is now free to process these amplified signals, and your other senses become magnified to the full extent of their power!"

Complete silence followed. Felix fell into a state of complete numbness. There was no point in seeing now. Color had been removed from his sight.

"Imagine what this can do for your careers," continued Dr. Lumens. "We carefully selected you because of your remarkable use of non-visual senses on a daily basis. A chef. A musician. A sommelier. Together, by taking part in this clinical trial, you have the potential to elevate the use of taste, hearing, and smell for all of humankind. You just need to suppress your sight on occasions."

I wish it was permanent, thought Felix. I wish never to see again.

The violinist drove mindlessly on the way home, with the radio turned off. There was no point in listening to music anymore. His eyes focused on the road ahead and all sounds of traffic around him were indistinct spills of oil without luster. Even the thunder from the brewing storm had lost any impact. He pulled into his driveway and finally got to close his eyes for a moment.

In a flash of lightning, it all came to him the second his eyelids shut.

The drips of rain on his windshield; the echoes of children running down the street to seek shelter from the inclement weather; the clinking of cutlery from the neighbors' dinner, all the way from the other side of the window.

The reverberations felt so rich, so powerful, so inebriating...

... but again, they fell into the void as he opened his eyes again. Now that he had tasted the full magnitude of sound's beauty, nothing else mattered. He knew it had to be done. He rushed inside, pulled out a knife, and gauged his eyes out.

***

"And now, some BREAKING NEWS. Police have taken into custody Dr. Henry Lumens, accused of colluding with prosthetic eye company See You Again. Dr. Lumens has been accused of subjecting hundreds of participants to a fake clinical study in order to drive them to insanity. Many of the patients are reported to have gauged out their own eyes, which eventually drove up demand for the prosthetic eye industry. The accused could face a prison sentence of thirty years for this alleged scheme."

Felix closed the TV. Had he been able to see, he could have glanced at Dr. Lumens' face one last time before he got shoved into the police car. He did not want to see such a scene unfold anyway. In a way, he remained grateful.

He pulled up his violin and started playing. The Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor (Op. 64) unfolded against his eardrums. All was well.