Lucas picks up the gray crayon and wonders what he might do with it. On a whim, he starts coloring over his brother's nose. Then he draws a curvy line coming out in front of his face. "That looks like an elephant trunk!" he says to himself. So he thickens the line and makes it into the best trunk he can draw.
"I know, I'll make my brother look like an elephant!"
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I walked into the kitchen to start cleaning up, when all of a sudden a pressure started building in my nose. It felt almost like I was going to sneeze, but I didn't. Then the feeling became a warmth. Gradually it turned into a kind of numbness. No, not a numbness--more like the opposite of a numbness. I seemed to be feeling MORE than usual, not less. I just wasn't feeling anything around my nose that I recognized.
It was like my nose wasn't even on my face. Well, it was ON my face, but I could also sense it BEYOND my face, if that makes sense. Actually, it didn't make any sense at all... until I scratched an itch on my chin.
I reached my hand up just under my chin and somehow brushed my nostrils. My NOSTRILS. My hand shouldn't have been anywhere near my nose. But somehow my nose was dangling out in front of my chin!
I grabbed a hold of the strange protrusion. It felt rough and leathery, not like skin at all--at least not human skin. It was tube-shaped and flexible, with two holes at the tip. But somehow my nose felt my hand grabbing and tugging at it. I stuck my finger into one of the holes and felt a finger go up my nostril. This dangling tube was definitely, somehow, my NOSE. Worse, I could feel it stretching...
Terrified, I ran to my bedroom to look in a mirror, and I felt my nose flopping back and forth with my steps. I expected to find some catastrophic injury when I got there. Instead, I found a trunk.
A trunk. That's the only word I could think of to describe it. I had a gray trunk with two nostrils sticking out of my face. It looked just like a smaller version of an elephant's trunk. And in just a few minutes, it had already grown to be a foot-long hose swaying in front my chest. I almost immediately clutched it up in both hands. It was still growing! Already I could aim it around with my hands, just like I might maneuver the hose on a vacuum cleaner. Then something strange happened. While I was twisting it in different directions, I felt a sudden lurch as my nose flailed itself right out of my grasp! Apparently, I didn't need my hands to move this thing. I had muscles in my nose, and they were strong.
Trying out the muscles again, I watched my trunk give another powerful lurch. By now, it was longer than either of my arms, and for now it seemed to have reached its full size. I decided to experiment and see what I could do. I soon found I was capable of smooth, directed movements with my new appendage. I pointed my trunk to the left, then to the right. I lifted it up high above my head. I even curled it around like a coil. Next, it was time to try picking up something. I'd seen elephants pick things up with there trunks, so I supposed I could, too. Carefully, I tucked my nose tightly around a vase that was sitting on the table. I lifted it up and purposely dumped out the flowers onto the table. Then, very gently, I set the vase back down. I could also pinch to the tip of my trunk to make fine-detail movements as well. After several tries, I was able to pick the individual flowers back up and stick them into the vase.
It was like having a tentacle--or even a third hand--sticking out of my face. It was scary but exhilarating. I didn't know how it happened or what would happen next, but it was undeniable. For some reason, I now had a trunk!