Most people would answer yes, and presumably look at the person who asked it with that certain look that is saved for very special occasions. Naturally you know how many ears you have, and if you’re not too much under the influence of spirits or suchlike, you might even know where you have them.

Or do you? Can you really be sure that the ears you’ve grown up with, went to school with, perhaps went on your first date with, learned to live with and love; the ears that for so long has been a part of you; that have shared your whole life and all the secrets you’ve ever heard – can you be sure that they are really yours? Or could your very own ears actually belong to someone else? Maybe even someone you don’t know?

If you asked me a week ago, I would have said no and given you that special look I tend to reserve for people with a more peculiar nature, but nowadays, I’m not as sure.

Just think about it; every person has one of his own ears, and one that belongs to someone else. You don’t know which is which, and most people don’t even know that both their ears aren’t theirs. And who would believe such a stupid theory?

But it makes sense. We often hear – not least of all in literature – about people who "hear voices" that no one else can hear. The most common explanation is that the person who "hears voices" is insane, or just imagining things, but that isn’t the truth. The truth is that those people either hear what their other ear – the one that sits on another person – hears, or that he hears what the person whose other ear he has hears.

Need I point out that such people often get taken care of by governmental employees? They have fancy titles and locks the "insane" up in some faraway hospital, where they no doubt become subject to "special treatment", so that they will cease "hearing voices". Or so the doctors say. In reality, the treatment is of another nature completely.

Have you ever thought that in this time-centred age of ours, that it is strange that so many people never seem to carry watches, and have to ask you what time it is? Or that even if we live in a world that gets smaller and smaller every day, where information mostly is free and everywhere, there still seems to be a lot of people who never knows how to go to come to this or that place, even if you – as the local – knows that they can’t have missed it if they’re coming down One-or-other Street.

This isn’t strange at all. Neither is it coincidence that people always seem to have great difficulties finding famous landmarks, but no problem at all finding less prominent places. It is all a great scheme put in action by the secret governments that really rule the world. The presumed tourists and foreigners that don’t know the way or what time it is, are in fact governmental spies, sent out to help their employers find out whose ears their "patients" have.

By carefully asking everyone – following a secret table or list, probably – they can delineate the entire population. They select a person in the street, ask him a question, and then disappear into either a crowd that – coincidentally – happens to pass by, or an alleyway. Meanwhile, their colleagues back on the "hospital" ask their "patient" what he hears, and if he would chance to hear the same question that the man on the street has just asked, then Bob’s their uncle.

It might seem to be a rather incommodious method, but I gather they’ve had many years of experience, and no doubt they have already an enormous register of citizens and who has whose ears.

It is also possible that they use TV, radio, video and movies to determine whose ears a "patient" has. That’s why TV became so big in such a short time.

Why do they do it, then? Well, apart from the possibilities of brainwashing people in their sleep by talking into the ear of a particular "patient", and thereby alter politics across the world, there is a large field of use: spies.

Imagine that there is a very paranoid dictator or other ruler that they don’t like. They can’t send spies, because eventually his intelligence service ferrets them out and execute them, but they can use the dictator as a spy. By finding the right person, they can – with a little help from illegal drugs, no doubt – listen to everything that the dictator says and hears – without him ever being able to find out! He can kill all the spies in the world, but how many dictators would cut their own ear of just to make sure no one knows his plans?

But, I can hear you say, what is the natural reason for us having each other’s ears in the first place? Well, that’s a rather easy one to answer: communication on long distances. When our primate ancestors long ago went out hunting, they didn’t have any way of knowing if their companions had seen anything or not. Therefore, they evolved a way of communicating even if they were far apart: sharing ears. All you had to do then was to whisper, "Deer at eleven o’clock" and it would spread like a forest fire throughout the hunting party. Everyone would after only a short while know where the quarry was, and what it was, and the prey didn’t suspect anything.

How can we prevent this, then? There must be a way to disable their lists and tables, mustn’t there?

Yes, and the answer is simple: stop wearing a watch, and stop looking at road signs. Start asking people instead. This will make the number of people being asked what time it is increase, which will make the "doctors’" task harder. It will be virtually impossible to determine whose ears the "patient" has, as twenty or more people will be asked the same question every minute!

So take of your watch and start asking other people. The day that no one has watches any longer is the day that they will finally be defeated. At least in this field.

Of course, after having read all this, it will only seem natural for the reader not to tell anyone about what he has read by means of sound. There is still no good way that we know of to find out who has whose ears, so if the reader finds it necessary to share this text with anyone, do so by writing it down or showing this text to him/her. Do not under any circumstances talk to anyone about it, unless you are positive about whose ears that person has.

Thank you for your time.