5 Senses

By Danielle Takeshita

Sight. Smell. Taste. Sound. Touch. These senses are our first interactions that leave a lasting impression of the world around us. Jamie had a normal life until the day a new neighbor moved in, an unusual girl named Iris with a notable disability. Iris was no ordinary girl and through years of inseparable friendship, his world was forever changed. Takeshita's haunting new novel masterfully blends the best of the young adult/thriller/and the supernatural genres into a tightly written novel with compelling characters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Danielle Takeshita
• Release date: May 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393260530

Danielle Takeshita

Danielle writes stories she felt she was craving to read as a pre-teen/teenager. Young Adult has grown drastically since then but she still want to share the stories she wished were out there for her at the time. Danielle is eager to follow her dream of traveling by moving to Asia with her partner in crime and a very ugly student loan that will enable her to stab people for a living and write about all her misadventures in a foreign country.

Book preview

Sight

There are some things in life that I innately know to be true: the smell of vanilla; the round, melancholic bass of a well-tuned cello; the blue of the sky on its clearest days; the brisk feel of the wind on my face and a slight chill making me shiver, or even the creamy flavor of my favorite tomato and basil soup on the tip of my tongue on a brisk day. I am tuned to these sensations, forming new memories with each of my senses and even find myself recognizing it like a long-lost friend each time I encountered it. I’m fortunate - and cursed at the same time - to not only have my senses, my kinesthesia, to gather and recollect a trove of memories that accompany very tangible impressions of the world made throughout my life.

It’s strange how one of my most vivid memories touched upon all of my senses at the tender age of nine after meeting a particular neighbor. I didn’t know it at the time, but that neighbor would be my best friend, and we would be inseparable. She had one thing that distinguished her from everyone else that I knew and she was born with something special.

School had just finished and I was on winter break. I sat bundled up on my porch bench watching the trees shiver against strong gusts of wind. It was a few days before my ninth birthday, and I wasn’t happy like most boys my age would be; I wasn’t eager to be one year older or wiser. To tell you the truth, I really dreaded it! It wasn’t because of the birthday itself but for the implication of the time of year that followed it. It meant another year of torture was only a few short weeks away and neither age nor wisdom would remedy my affliction. It wasn’t my tanned skin, neither my stark black hair nor my slightly almond shaped eyes that deem me the source for ridicule, but my size. Even at such a young age, my growth spurt hadn’t kicked in and I was picked on for being the round, pudgy kid. Anything that hindered me physically, socially and emotionally stemmed from that. With another year coming to a close and a new one beginning, I would be stuck with my tormentors and people who would rather ignore me and my situation than help a social pariah. I wished I could simply ignore everything and pretend it all away.

I used to like sitting outside in solitude with no one to bother me. I could enjoy the empty street and breathe in the cold moist air that lingered only around winter. I would pretend to be invisible on my stoop all bundled up, and silently watch and listen to my surroundings. The occasional bird would fly overhead with a tweet or screech and after a long stint of making–like–a–statue, I would at times catch a glimpse of the neighborhood cat skulking between houses, under cars and bushes. Moments like these made me realize how similar I was to these animals as loners and watchers of the area. If I sat still for a long time, I’d even get a rare glimpse of wildlife like the hoary bat, elusive and normally hard to find this time of the year since they blend so well with the dreary colors of the neighborhood. I was patient and quiet; two traits we both share.

If there was a light drizzle, I’d stand out in the open and feel it bounce off my face to let it fall upon my tongue and have a taste of winter. It was during one of these quiet, lonely moments to myself when I noticed a sudden chill that racked my body. I vigorously rubbed my cotton gloved hands together. I blew into my cupped hands and put them on my face, repeating the same process until I was sufficiently warm. Across the street, two houses down, a U­Haul truck pulled into the driveway. That house had been for sale for two years, but I noticed the sign went missing a few weeks ago.

A blue Chevy van pulled in front of the house a few minutes later. The driver stepped out of the van and I assumed this man was the father of the family. He walked to the other side and opened the door for the front passenger, which I assumed was the mother. The woman opened the sliding door behind her to let out two loud and excited boys and seemed to be talking to whoever was left in the van. Those who were already out of the van scurried to the moving trucks, but my attention drew towards back to the van. A teenage boy that was the spitting image of his father, with light brown hair and a slightly tanned skin, came from behind the driver’s seat and around to where the mother had left the door open.

The teenage boy grabbed a backpack and talked aloud to himself, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. As though he felt my eyes on him, he swiftly turned around and scanned the houses down the street until he saw me. He stared at me with such scrutiny that I averted my eyes and couldn’t help but feel nervous and fidgety under his gaze before I meekly glanced up in his direction. The older boy still glared at me as I glanced back, and I started a halfhearted wave, but the heaviness of his stare was almost more than I could bear. His scowl deepened, and I shrank from it, tucking my hand away slowly and returned to stare at the ground. I idly scuffed my toe to the ground and chanced another quick glance in his direction through my bangs, but quickly looked away before I would freeze under his glare. I had hoped he didn’t see me try to make contact because I wanted to sink into the ground at that point. The older boy turned his back to me and opened the van door wider, standing there as though waiting for something. Granted, he was obstructing the majority of my field of vision, but I noticed a pair of high top-covered feet dangled from the opened door before him. The boy held out his hand for whomever he was waiting for to grasp it before helping her down from the van.

It was a small girl. There was something about her that was...different. She was bundled up from head to toe and gingerly stood by her brother. The girl tilted her head up and inhaled deeply before a bright smile beamed on her face. She reached out her hand to stabilize herself with the van before reaching for her brother’s jacket and holding on tightly. Her brother walked her forward to a bed of flowers and picked one for her. I watched the girl pet it gently as though it was the most precious thing in the world and then nuzzled it against her cheek. After that, she took a long whiff of it before she tentatively took a tiny piece of the petal and ate it. I thought it was odd but didn’t think much of it after that point.

At this point, their mother called to them. The girl lifted her head and tilted it slightly in her mother’s direction before she waked where everyone had gathered. The whole family anxiously stood on the lawn to look in the house. The mother and father pointed and talked animatedly about various aspects of the house. The two younger brothers who were fighting and wrestling were soon chastised by the mother. When the last two stragglers came, they all gathered around and take in the whole scene before as though they were in the process of creating a memory. As they were huddled together, I realized what had struck me about the girl. She didn’t look anything like her family, all of whom had dark, bronzed skin and curly, burnt sienna locks. She stood there like a crane in the middle of a herd of geese with her fair complexion, straight silky, almost platinum hair, and slender form. In fact, she looked remarkably out of place. Had her family not gathered so intimately before their new home, I would have guessed she was a total stranger that had barged in on their moment.

She seemed to be about my age, perhaps a year or two younger from the looks of her. Almost as though she sensed I was not only watching her family but thinking about her, she turned slowly toward my direction. Her family dispersed, probably to settle in. She walked towards the boundary of their lawn and stared in my general direction for a while. Then the girl smiled and waved shyly at me. Her bright cerulean eyes and the way they shined even from this distance had caught me off guard. I could only smile tightly and wave back timidly.

Her brother, the one who scared me and, I presumed, the oldest, call her back to the house. Iris, come and check out your room!

She paused before she turned away, breaking the trance she put me in.

Iris. I repeated chanted it to myself and in my head so as to never forget it.

Eye­-Rhis, I enunciated to myself slowly. It was an unusual name, but I liked the sound of it the more I said it. I was so taken with her, yet I haven’t even met her face to face. She left that much of an impression from a brief encounter from afar. Even then, I knew there was something about her.

.~ . ~.

The next day, I wanted to get back home from my cub scout meeting so that I may introduce myself to our new neighbors. When we got home, Iris was playing in her front yard with a yo-yo and thought this was my chance to say hello.

I mustered up my courage, made sure to look both ways before crossing the street, and walked down the sidewalk, hoping she wouldn’t notice me. Fortunately, she didn’t even though there weren’t many trees to shield me. I peered from behind a tree. Iris slowly lowered herself to the ground and set her yo­yo down. I was transfixed by her careful movements and how everything that she did seem to be deliberate like a baby learning its first steps. She slowly rose again and walked gingerly toward the house.

I was fascinated as she looked straight ahead with her head slightly tilted up a bit. I wondered what she was doing and thought it was safe to walk closer to her as she had her back turned. I was at the edge of her yard when I stopped so I didn’t startle her on our first meeting. Then I noticed something peculiar. She walked with her hands out almost as if to balance herself, but when I looked at her face, she didn’t focus on anything in particular. Her head was slowly moving from left to right as though she was listening to music of some sort. That’s when I noticed her nose was twitching. She passed the vibrant pansies, snapdragons, daisies and neared the delicate roses that enclosed her house. She leaned in as if she was guided by her nose. When she found her target, a bubbly giggle escaped her.

I didn’t realize I had taken a few steps closer to her and was a scant few feet away. She touched the delicate petals of the rose she was currently interested in. Her grasp upon the stem was feather-light, cautious of the pointy thorns. She finally found a spot where the thorns were thinning out and carefully pinched them between her thumb and forefinger of one hand while holding it still with the other.

Oh, I said quietly to myself as it finally dawned on me. She’s blind. She didn’t even look at what she was doing the whole time she inspected the flower.

Upon my interjection, she turned and dropped her rose. As she bent down to pick it up, I hesitated at first for startling her, but I reached down to pick the rose up for her. I grabbed it about the same time that she reached for it, so I carefully placed it within her grasp.

Thank you, she said timidly. Hello, I greeted just as shyly.

Hi, she giggled. My name is Iris. What’s yours? 

Iris said her name a little funny like a few of the other kids in my class, saying s’s with a ‘th’ sound.  I thought it was cute, but I would never tell aloud.

James, I replied with a scrunched face because no one called me that except for the teachers on the first day of school, but my family calls me, ‘Jaime.’

I was picking a flower for my mom, Iris said. "Thank you for helping me get it up. I have to go put it