seeing or hearing ? Two male obs

[atchoum]

Seeing or hearing

There was a thread on the general board some time ago about whether seeing a sneeze without hearing it was more frustration than the contrary. A couple of seen sneezes this week confirms my frustration if I don’t hear the sneeze too.

The first was at the uni. I was looking out of the window (closed tight – it has been unseasnoably cold in Paris lately) when I saw a very tall student walking slowly towards the main building, when he suddenly doubled over in what was obviously a quick back to back double sneeze – the head did a double nod at it finished the thrust. This week I passed this student coming out of the staff restaurant (so he must be at least a postgraduate) and he turns out to be not quite so tall (195cm/6ft4 ?) but blond tousedly haired and the sort you would like to see (and hear !) sneeze some more.

The second was in the metro. The train was pulling into the station, when I saw in the first carriage – a split second vision – a man of about twenty in the process of sneezing – not only was his body propelled forward in his seat, his lips were visibly blown forward by the blast. I ran to get on the same carriage, but though there were sniffs, there were no more sneezes. But it must have been a beauty !