2161 Lend me your ears

It became very fashionable in the year 2048 for teens to cut off one of their ears and send it to a near relative who had an opposing view. It pointed to the extraordinary place Vincent Van Gogh held in the history of the world. In fact it was no longer the year 2028, it was the year 158VG, being 158 years since the death of Van Gogh. Of course the purists argued that it should really be 195VG. It was more traditional to start a date with a birth rather than death.

Things had gone from bad to worse. It had reached a pretty pass. Weapons were no longer of much use, as everyone possessed an anti-bullet catchinometer, which negated the effect of any weapon before it reached its target. It was therefore impossible to have a war. There was no way that the enemy could get slaughtered.

The argument had now reached a crisis; those who took the side of date-since-birth would cut off their right ear and send it to an enemy. Those who took the side of date-since-death would cut off their left ear and send it to an enemy. For this reason the two opposing camps were known as right-earholes and left-earholes.

Delwynne had an ear delivered in the mail and she was in a panic. She had never taken sides in the matter. Who would have sent her an ear? And was it a left ear or a right ear? Dozens of young people passed her house every day. There was no telling which one may have been the benefactor.

In the end, Delwynne compromised; she cut off both ears. No one would know if she belonged to the left or the right. But unfortunately life is not that simple. She was ostracized by both sides. Who wants to be seen talking to someone who sits on the fence?

“Delwynne, you’re a total earhole,” was the catch cry heard along Delwynne’s street. Delwynne tried not to listen. But she was an earhole! Indeed she was.

2003. The fortunes of Mavis

It was no fault of Mavis that she was born with two noses. She had four nostrils. It didn’t seem to add to her sense of smell; in fact compared to some her smell appeared sometimes below par.

Some people were appalled at the sight of her, but it’s amazing what you can get used to with familiarity. It’s only ignorance that prevents people from looking beyond appearances. Yes, I suppose Mavis having two noses and four nostrils did make her ugly to look at and difficult to relate to, but underneath she had a sparkling personality and that’s what matters.

Not even having four ears could distract from her noses. She “cheated” a bit with her ears because she let her hair grow down over them and most people didn’t notice. It was only at secondary school when her calculating calculus teacher got scissors and cut Mavis’s hair off to illustrate a point about the number 4 that people began to realize that she had extra ears. “Spare ears” the calculus teacher called them. Again, having an extra two ears didn’t seem to add to her aural perceptions. In fact, to hear her sing was a clear sign that she was tone deaf.

To be fair, her tone deafness might not have been brought about by having four ears. It might have been caused by the fact that she had two tongues. She wasn’t (dear me, no) born with two tongues. She was late in starting to learn to talk so her father split her tongue in the manner (now banned) of splitting a magpie’s tongue to facilitate human speech in the magpie. It made little difference to Mavis. She was still a late developer when it came to speech and always spoke with a lisp.

It wasn’t so much her lisp that was annoying; it was her stutter. She had the most terrible stutter, and with a split tongue we had the odious obligation to sit patiently while she said everything twice.

It’s not impossible that by now you’ve heard enough about Mavis to get a picture of her. She had lots of other things of interest with her body as well, like a fifth arm that poked out of her neck. All that need be said is that Mavis’s luck changed around her twentieth birthday. A fairly insignificant artist – Pablo someone – asked her to pose for a painting. She did so, and has never looked back.

1190. What?

Russell was told not to clean his ears with cotton buds. “Don’t put anything in your ear smaller than your elbow,” said the doctor.

Anyway, Russell is getting used to his silent world.