Sonic Rainbows

Neil Harbisson’s TED Talk “I Listen to Colors” (I recommend checking it out first) is what inspired this submission idea, as did the phenomenon of synaesthesia.  What if, somewhere in your Amalgam Universe, there was an alien race out there for whom normal perceptions of color and sound were not like humans, but color and sound were interrelated - fashion was chosen for how it sounded rather than how it looked, portraits were heard symphonies, and music and speeches could be presented as paintings, that sort of thing…

[AN: If you want to check it out, you can watch his talk here. Artificial synaesthesia is pretty darn cool. And I need an ear-bug to warn me not to stay in the sunshine]

(#00713 - A348)

The universe is colour. The universe is sound. It’s also taste and smell and all the other senses, but for C♭, those were the two that mattered most. They were one and the same.

But there were subtleties. There was a difference between sight-sound -the way something sounded when she looked at it- and sound-sight, which was the way things looked when she heard them. Mostly, they agreed. An ugly person sounded ugly when she looked at them and looked ugly when they spoke.

But the humans? They were always surprising. They were the reason she joined the Loyal Order of Hitchhikers.

A human could sound unpleasant on first impressions, but turn out to be the most vivid of speakers. Or have a Van Gogh singing voice. Or be able to tell stories worth an art gallery.

Some, unable or unwilling to do any of those, could take out a portable instrument and create symphonies.

One she met could do them with knitting.

C♭ was very pleased that she was allowed to both keep and wear that masterpiece. And did so at every possible opportunity.

But it was when she stopped in at an Unsuitable Food branch to enjoy the Opuses composed live that she met the most interesting one. She looked very sombre, mournful and dour, but sounded like a fresh spring day full of lilies.

“Ey up,” she chirped. “What’s with the loud sweater, then?”

“Loud?” echoed C♭ in confusion. “This is much quiet. Peaceful serenade, and calming comfort that also keeps me warm.”

A sharp snap of her fingers, briefly illuminating the soundscape with its light. “Aw, yer a Sweet-RIff, yeh? Lemme ge’ ma axe…”

Her arm briefly vanished into a shadow and re-appeared with a guitar. Then she played the name of C♭’s people flawlessly.

“Yes! That’s us! You know the songs of my people?”

“No’ quite, but I can jam. You lead, then.”

It took four songs and quite a lot of change raining chartreuse tingles into her hat before someone told C♭ that the entity known as Shayde was an Ambassador.

She was the best one C♭ had ever met, capable of making her feel at home even though she was hundreds of jumps from her home planet of Chorus.

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