3 Senses

and I can see hear smell touch taste
coz I've got one, two, three, four five
senses working overtime
trying to take this all in
I've got one two three four five
senses working over time
trying to taste the difference
between the lemons and limes
pain and pleasure
and the church bells softly chime...

-XTC

Though blurry, sticky and watery, my eyes are fine. I can still see.

My ears, also, are working, though they are a bit stuffed and prone to plugging.

And for now, I still have sensation in my fingers and toes.

Other than those three senses, however, I'm fucked. A month of severe allergies have left my sinuses angry and in tatters. My nose is seized shut like a Mormon girl's legs. I have no natural capacity to pass air in or out through my nose. My ears are on the edge and my eyes seem to be passing what fluids my nose cannot.

And where the nose goes, the sense of taste will follow. My mechanical blockage in my nose has preempted any hope of having the sense of smell, and with out smell, I have no taste.

Now, out of the five senses, taste is probably the least necessary for survival, but may surprisingly be the most important for pleasure. Sure, the other four senses can be pleased, each in its own way. However, taste exists, perhaps, for no other reason than pleasure.

And to lose it is the height of frustration. You do not realize what you enjoy tasting on a daily basis, until you are no longer able to taste it. Toothpaste. Coffee. Lunch. Mint. Dinner. Gin. Beer. Nothing. I cannot taste a single goddamn thing.

Take a burger, for instance. It's salty and vinegary and sweet and smokey, but no, I can taste none of it. My mind remembers what flavors I'm supposed to be tasting. It anticipates the salt of cheese and the meat. It predicts the bite of the mustard. It remembers the starch in the bun. but no, I am unable to receive or transmit any neural signal to my brain from my tongue. It feels like a burger, but it tastes like nothing.

Hopefully, in the next few days, the blockage will break up, but until then, I'll be eating rice and drinking water, because really, there's no point in wasting any more money on flavor.