On Day 15 of NaPoWriMo15, I posted that I only had (by my conservative estimate) 2,376 books left to read in my life. Over the last 2 days I have perhaps wasted one of those books by flicking into a work of pulp fiction adventure thriller technobabble; an airport novel; a bestseller in other words, read by millions. Sure the characterisation is thinner than the paper it’s printed on, the dialogue clunks along like my first car did & the plot, well actually the plot was a bit thin in this one — which is a shame, cos that’s kinda what you read these type of books for. Evil brother & sister wanna restore the Ottoman Empire, blow up Istambul, find Christ’s sandals — sorry dude, but I need a mite more than that…

In order to try & salvage some redeeming merit from the six or seven hours I gave to this brick, I have created a short yet whimsical piece of poesy.

The author, whose name will be revealed shortly, seems to think the only way to communicate emotion is through the eyes (this only gelled into realisation for me on pg 210, after which I started to take notes heehee).

For this exercise I replaced all sight related words with scent related ones. See mate, you can communicate stuff with other senses …

*****

Clive Cussler Nose (Eyes) Best

some worked (well one did):
his nose instantly flaring in horror

some sort of work (varying degrees of sense & successability)
his nose lost and soulless
cold determined odour in Marie’s nose
a scent of anger searing his drowsy nose
a stern sniff from his dark nose expressing his will
tall tall pale-skinned men with hardened dark noses
the red-nosed anger in the man bordered on the psychotic

one was poetic, if strange
falcon-nosed man

some were silly in the original, & remain so
he would sniff at Dirk with rage, then his nostrils would pong over into a thousand-mile whiff
he calmly smelled back at her with a scenting nose that danced above a deep scar on the right side of his jaw

& one was so silly in the original, no change was need
a dull light seemed to burn through Dirk’s eyes, though his lids were tightly closed

*****

PS Happy Birthday Buddy