Day 7; pm, 11,811 words so far. 2027 written today

Tired. must sleep. excerpt:

“Again.” Sylk closed his eyes. This time Moa’qi tapped on the ground as he walked away. Sylk listened again through his muffled ears until he could hear nothing anymore. Moa’qi, began weaving back and forth, now near, now far. He also began to vary the strength of the tapping. The effect was such that Sylk finally gave up trying to hear. His sense of hearing was unreliable, and easily tricked. Sylk was frustrated, and growing tired of standing. Just when he was about to ask for a reprieve, he realized that what he thought he was listening to, he was not actually hearing. Rather, he was sensing somehow the tapping of the spear. His brain had been reading the input as sound. But it was not sound. It was – in the ground! Wait. It was moving. The tapping was circling him, just out of hearing. He instinctively turned to face toward the source of the tapping. As soon as he oriented on the tapping, it stopped. Sylk stood still, straining to sense his surrounding, and waiting for the tapping sensation to start again. There! To his left. Three taps? Yes, three. He turned to face it. Again it stopped. Sensing, sensing. There! One tap, behind him. He turned. As he was turning, he sensed, or did he feel? The tap moved just ahead of his rotation. He stopped and stood still. Tap. Behind him again. He removed one hand from his ear, pointed, then replaced. Tap. Different somehow. Same direction, but - Ahh, closer. He pointed again.

The exercise continued for quite some time. Sylk’s arms were quivering, and he finally just let his arms down. Tap. How odd. He knew there was a tap, but he did not hear it even with his ears uncovered. He turned and opened his eyes. For a moment, he could not see his Master. Tap. He swiveled to his left and saw Moa’qi, but he was too far away! He watched the spear come up, then drop. Then he felt the tap. How bizarre! He did not expect the time lapse. He sat down, and watched as Moa’qi walked toward him. There was something different, something about his Master walking toward him. What was it? Finally, he realized that he was thinking that he was hearing the footsteps of his Master. But, he could not hear them. He frowned, waiting for Moa’qi, hoping that he would get some answers this time instead of more mind bending questions.

“Lunchtime!” Moa’qi sat next to him, and produced some hard tack and his own water holder, offering it to Sylk. “Ever hear anyone talking about someone having a sixth sense?”

“Yes”, Sylk replied.

“What are the senses?”

“They number five: sight, sound, hearing, taste, touch.”

“And the sixth sense?”

Sylk frowned. What was the sixth sense? “I don’t think there is a sixth sense.”

“Very good. As it happens, you are correct. Of course there aren’t five senses either. Or four.”

“How can you say that?” Sylk asked.

“What, do you think hearing and seeing are different?”
Sylk felt like saying “Duh”, but refrained. Instead he asked, “Aren’t they?”

“Most people think so. But it is a question of degree, or perhaps more correctly, of orders of abstraction.”

Sylk just looked at him.

“Hmmm. You are not following me at the moment are you.”

Sylk was surprised by a yawn, then said, “I’m really very tired for some reason. May I lay down while you talk?”

“Oh sure. Go ahead and sleep through this important lesson.”