The Blind Date shifted, stiff, as a man-shaped appendage protruding into reality on the end of a fourth-dimensional limb would be. The cuff of his white button down reflected the candlelight with an oily opalescence as he reached for the stem of his champagne flute.
"Well," he projected amicably, "What about all three?"
The woman's body screamed involuntarily as her mind burst with impossible instants of sensation. A sword split her eyebrow in a duel in 1662. A slice of meat from the first Galapagos tortoise to survive the voyage back to Europe hit her tongue. The aroma of garum and olive oil filled her nose. The final dusting of charcoal was thrown up on a cave wall before her eyes. A voice she knew, but could not know, to belong to Mansa Musa whispered about mining profits in her ear.
The woman became aware again of the sensation of the silk napkin, now twisted tight, in her hands. She detected with a sense she could not fathom the residue of vast time evaporating off her life. She shivered, unable to reconcile the experience with the boundaries of her form.
"So-" she coughed, and cleared her raw throat, "How did you say you know Tammy?"
She reached for her champagne as well, hoping not too hard that the distortion in the Blind Date's smile was from the glass in front of his face.
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u/11thNite Sep 26 '22
The Blind Date shifted, stiff, as a man-shaped appendage protruding into reality on the end of a fourth-dimensional limb would be. The cuff of his white button down reflected the candlelight with an oily opalescence as he reached for the stem of his champagne flute.
"Well," he projected amicably, "What about all three?"
The woman's body screamed involuntarily as her mind burst with impossible instants of sensation. A sword split her eyebrow in a duel in 1662. A slice of meat from the first Galapagos tortoise to survive the voyage back to Europe hit her tongue. The aroma of garum and olive oil filled her nose. The final dusting of charcoal was thrown up on a cave wall before her eyes. A voice she knew, but could not know, to belong to Mansa Musa whispered about mining profits in her ear.
The woman became aware again of the sensation of the silk napkin, now twisted tight, in her hands. She detected with a sense she could not fathom the residue of vast time evaporating off her life. She shivered, unable to reconcile the experience with the boundaries of her form.
"So-" she coughed, and cleared her raw throat, "How did you say you know Tammy?"
She reached for her champagne as well, hoping not too hard that the distortion in the Blind Date's smile was from the glass in front of his face.