Making Sense Of It All

Zak’s Senses were reeling.

It was inevitable there’d be a degree of anxiety and expectation around tonight, so Zak’s Brain had called all Five of them in, to operate directly from his Command Centre. That way they could all be on hand to make an instant, co-ordinated response to any and every eventuality. Now, he was glad that he had.

“I want immediate confirmation on that, Hearing,” Brain barked from his huge chair in the middle of the Command Centre. “I don’t want to screw this up tonight.”

“Confirmed Captain,” Hearing said as he examined his console. “She said, quote, ‘You can definitely buy me a drink’.  I detected an eighty-seven percent flirting intonation.”

“Right boys,” said Brain. “Stand by. We’re off.”

At the bar in their university campus, Zak was sat with Eloise. Two weeks earlier they’d met, when they both joined the same course, and he’d known at first sight. Indeed, Sight had immediately raced to the Command Centre with his report and Brain had confirmed it without hesitation. “Yep,” he’d said, checking the in-vision monitor and promptly discarding the quandary he was pondering of which flavour Pot Noodle to have for dinner. “We fancy her.”

And now here Zak was. He’d overcome his shyness to ask Eloise out for a drink tonight, to find out if she might be interested in him. He was starting to sense that she was. He ordered two pints and paid the barman.

In the Command Centre, Taste’s console flashed red.

“Captain,” he said, “the lager isn’t right. I don’t think the lines have been cleaned properly. We’ll be ill tomorrow if we continue drinking this stuff.”

“For crying out loud, Taste,” Brain yelled, “that’s hardly the main sodding priority at the moment, is it?”

“Of course, sorry. Just an instinctive reaction.”

“Can everybody just try to focus on the job in hand, please,” Brain commanded. There was a murmur of agreement from everyone.

At the bar, Zak talked. About their coursework, the lecturers, where he was from, what extra-curricular activities he might be interested in getting involved in, his preference of Pot Noodle flavours... He was doing his best to hide his nervousness.

“Er, ‘scuse me, Captain?”

“What is it, Hearing?” Brain said irritably. “I’m concentrating.”

“It’s just that my instruments have showed no significant activity for about three minutes now.”

“So?”

“Well, just a suggestion, but don’t you think we ought to shut up for a minute and ask her about her?”

Brain stopped concentrating for a moment and actually did some thinking.

“Fair enough,” he said to Hearing. “Good call.”

At the bar, Zak said, after a slight pause, “So… how’s your lager?”

“Damnit!” Brain shouted. “What kind of a stupid bloody thing was that to say? Idiot!” He turned and glared at Taste. “That’s your bloody fault, Taste. Planting that thought in me about the dodgy pint.”

“I can’t help it,” Taste said, hunching his shoulders. “I’m just doing my job.”

“Well do it better!... What was that, Hearing?” Hearing was examining his latest console reading. “What did she say?”

“She said, ‘It tastes a bit weird, to be honest. I don’t think they’ve cleaned the lines properly.’”

“Told you,” Taste muttered.

“All right,” Brain shouted, rising angrily from his chair and glaring around the entire Command Centre. “We’ve probably only got one chance at this, so everybody just up your bloody game, right?”

“Yes Captain,” said the five Senses in unison.

“Captain?”

Brain looked over to the far side of the Command Centre. “What is it Smell?”

“I’ve got something that might get us on track.”

“Tell me.”

“Her perfume. She’s wearing Black Opium.”

Everyone in the Command Centre turned their heads to look at Smell. They all knew this could be a breakthrough.

“Are you sure?” Brain asked.

“Ninety-eight percent. It’s in my files. It’s the perfume Leanne used to wear that first year of sixth form, remember?”

They all remembered, but they wished they couldn’t. Leanne hadn’t been one of their finest encounters, and one way or another they’d all got a bit bruised and battered from Zak’s six-week relationship with her. The Command Centre fell silent for the briefest moment as Brain recollected the time with a shudder.

“All right,” Brain said, snapping himself back to the moment and the task in hand. “Let’s go for it.”

At the bar, Zak said, “You smell gorgeous. Is that Black Opium you’re wearing?”

Eloise looked impressed. “It is. It’s my favourite, I love Yves Saint Laurent.”

Zak gave a measured nod. “Duly noted,” he said.

Eloise placed her hand briefly on Zak’s thigh and said, “Good.” Then she excused herself to go to the bathroom, and Zak smiled. He was sensing success.

“Everything all right Touch?” Brain asked, whilst around him the other Senses were high-fiving and rejoicing in this small victory.

“Don’t worry,” Touch said, frantically fighting to regain command of his console, whose instruments were spinning and whizzing and bleeping out of all control. “The hand on the thigh so soon just took me a bit by surprise, that’s all.”

Brain looked over at Smell. “Excellent work, Smell. I think you’ve put us in with a pretty decent fighting chance there.” Smell shrugged his shoulders self-deprecatingly as the team congratulated him.

Suddenly, an utterance from Sight cut through the celebratory atmosphere in the Command Centre. “Oh, crap.” They all turned their attention to him.

“What is it?” said Brain.

“I’ve just zoned in on something at the door. You might want to take a look.”

“Screen on.”

The colossal in-vision monitor fired up and Sight focussed over towards the door at the other side of the bar. Ricky Walters, a second-year student, had entered and was looking around ominously.

“Shit!” Brain exclaimed, and he instinctively rushed back to his chair. The other Senses followed suit and returned to their consoles.

“Jeans, a faded white tee-shirt, and a black leather jacket,” Sight reported.

“Probably reeks of Lynx,” said Smell.

“It’s my job to do the surmising, Smell,” Brain warned.

“Sorry Captain.”

“But you’re right. He looks like a crap extra from Quadrophenia.” At the bar, Zak smirked. “All right, we need to deal with this. If Ricky sees Eloise he’ll definitely come over, then all tonight’s work will be wasted.” Brain couldn’t be certain, but he was convinced that Ricky Walters liked Eloise too, and Ricky’s natural charm and confidence was an obvious advantage over Zak’s own shyness. He needed to come up with a plan, and fast.

“He’s heading over to the jukebox,” Sight observed.

“Good,” said Brain, “that buys us a bit of time. Let’s find Eloise.”

Smell’s console beeped. “She’s already here,” he said. A second later, Sight confirmed this, and the beautiful image of Eloise appeared on the monitor. She smiled.

Touch stood up dramatically from his chair. “Hand holding! There’s hand holding, guys. She’s holding our hand.”

“She’s speaking, Hearing,” said Brain. “What’s she saying?”

Hearing reported: “Listen, I’ve got some decent booze in my room – and some decent music…” Hearing’s focus pulled to the jukebox in the background – which was playing something by McFly, Brain suspected – before focussing back to Eloise. “…What do you think? Shall we go back to my room?”

Brain leapt off his chair, whooped what could only be described as a cowboy ‘yee-haa’, and performed a quintuple back somersault around the Command Centre before punching the air.

At the bar, Zak said, “Okay.”

During the short walk to Eloise’s room, the five Senses did their best to reconfigure their consoles, while Brain just performed slow, deep breaths and told himself not to jump to too many conclusions. Eloise had only talked about booze and music, nothing else. He didn’t want to misread the situation; these Senses only had eighteen years of experience in total, after all, and precious little experience when it came to processing this sort of situation. As he continued to slowly calm himself, he concocted things to say when they arrived that would seem cool, measured, and unpresumptuous.

Zak and Eloise got to her room and she closed the door behind them. “I like what you’ve done with…” was as far as Zak managed to get with what his brain had come up with, when Eloise immediately pushed him against the door and kissed him with wild passion and pure teenage abandonment.

The Command Centre kicked off like NASA mission control.

“Whoooooooooo shiiiiiiit!” was all Brain could exclaim, to begin with.

“Somehow the crap lager doesn’t seem as bad in her mouth,” said Taste.

Meanwhile, Smell’s Emergency Console flashed amber. “Twenty-seven percent chance detected of recent cannabis activity,” he announced.

“Good!” Brain said, having got a hold of himself. “That’s good, that’s got to work in our favour.” Then he realised that the monitor was still on. Eloise’s face loomed large on the vast screen. “Sight!” Brain shouted. “Close the eyes, for God’s sake. She’s snogging us! Do you want to look like a maniac? Close the eyes!”

“Sorry Captain,” said Sight, and the monitor went dark. “I panicked.”

Touch was busy, closely observing and monitoring hand activity. “Captain, reports are suggesting she’s not wearing a bra.” Brain gripped his armrests tightly. Touch continued to report that Eloise was now lifting her top up over her head and off.

Brain looked at the screen. “Sight!” he screamed. “For Christ’s sake, do I have to do your job for you? Open the eyes!”

Sight scrambled to press a button and the monitor immediately fed a picture into the Command Centre again. Brain fell off his chair.

In Eloise’s room, Zak pulled his own shirt over his head, as Eloise lay back on her bed and pulled Zak down onto it too.

Brain put his seatbelt on.

Suddenly, the small door of the Command Centre burst open like the doors to a Wild West saloon, and everyone spun round. In the doorway stood an already overbearing figure which seemed to be growing larger by the second. Brain narrowed his eyes.

“Hello, Penis,” said Brain.

The figure in the doorway strode into the Command Centre. “All right Brain,” he said. “Stand down. I’ll take it from here.”