Copyright 2020 by Jim Doran

“You are the most eratious man I have ever wazaled.”

Renata smiled at me as she made this remark five minutes into our date. I choked on my Sam Adams. The waiter hadn’t even brought our appetizer. Once again, I congratulated myself on my choices of first dates.

I set down my beer, missing the coaster completely.

Renata didn’t take her eyes off of me. Her oversized glasses magnified her hazel eyes and she pushed back an auburn curl. “That’s why I decided to go out with you, but with a philtrum like yours, it doesn’t surprise me.”

“And here I thought it was my charming smile.”

Renata turned her head slightly, color blossoming on her cheek. “Oh, that helped. But when I wazaled your krayle, I knew.”

The waiter set down a stack of deep-fried onions between us. Renata closed her eyes and sniffed the greasy appetizer, her head rising at the same time. “I love to smell my food, or coffee, or nature.” She opened her eyes wide. “The world! Unlike my sight, my other senses are strong, including my hife.”

I blinked. “Your hife.”

She grabbed a fork and speared the top onion ring. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you? I’m sorry. Sometimes I go on.”

Oh, this ought to be good. I couldn’t wait to hear her explanation of wazale, eratious, and hife.

She dropped the onion on her plate and quartered it with the edge of her fork. “I have thick eyeglasses. I can see but I was born with very poor sight. But you know how our other senses are strengthened when one is weak?”

I nodded, opened my mouth to say something, but instead allowed her to continue.

“Well everyone thinks we’re born with five senses, but we’re actually born with six. The sixth sense is non-functional, or extremely limited, in all but a select few. But, thanks to social media, a small group of us have studied our sixth sense. Mine is stronger than most.”

“You mean like—?”

She held up her left hand to cut me off and poked the onion piece with her fork in her right hand. “Not ESP. Nothing like that. Our teachers taught us that only sight, hearing, touch, taste, and feel exist, but they were wrong. There is a sixth sense. Hife.”

I rubbed my chin. “Hife.”

“Yes, I read about it online. Just like you see with your eyes, you wazale with your philtrum.” She pointed at her own pronounced philtrum above her lips. “My community named the sixth sense ‘hife.’ All people have it but only certain people may tap into it. We fortunate few walk around all day, wazaling this way and that, exercising our hife.”

I leaned forward.  Her conviction and total lack of reserve were fascinating. “So you wazaled me? And you thought I was aromatic?” I couldn’t help but tease her.

She rolled her eyes. “That’s smelling. Eratious is a pleasant reaction I get from certain people I wazale.” She raised her eyebrows. “With you, it was off the charts.”

“And that’s because of my philtrum.”

She nibbled on a piece of the onion. “Most people I wazale aren’t eratious at all. What do you expect? They hardly take care of their philtrums.” She pointed her fork at me. “You obviously spend a lot of time on yours.”

I touched my philtrum. “I spend hours on it.”

“I knew it.” Her eyes danced behind her glasses but then her smile faltered. “Hey, you aren’t making fun of me, are you? Use your phone and search philtrums and hife. You’ll read about us. We’re a small but a scrappy bunch.”

Of that I had no doubt. I stared at her, entranced. Where would this conversation go by the main course? She was fascinating before we even started talking about how we felt about each other. Not only that, when I wazaled her, I found her pretty eratious myself.

Six senses? Really? Wait until she found out that when I dringed her with my seventh sense, it was an altogether glynde experience.