[This is a fictional piece. Any similarity to actual persons or occurrences is purely coincidental.]
“And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine.”
— Marcel Proust, À la Recherche du Temps Perdu
One day I stepped outside my house and could not smell the earthy scent in the air after a hard overnight rain. I sniffed repeatedly, gulped a lungful of cold air. I walked to the small pond in the yard where water lilies grow. I went to the coffee shop downstairs where I get my morning brew. I finally went to my doctor. My doctor said I was suffering from a condition called anosmia due to side effects of chemo and the damage may be permanent. My doctor explained there is a bony little plate in our noses that connects to the olfactory bulb in our forebrain which receives input of odor detected by the plate and the chemo “sheared that plate off.”
There is a Cinnabon next to the hospital. Every time I passed by the place it reminded me of airports. All airports are laced with Cinnabon’s distinctly rich, saccharine and crowd pleasing aroma. Not me. I never liked cinnamon. I swear to god I knew that smell when I was still a fetus in my mom’s womb. I hate it because as far as I could remember my mom always made cinnamon rolls to stop herself from getting upset with my dad. She said cinnamon smells like happiness. I started to get what she meant when I arrived at La Guardia with my one-way ticket. So I bought a cinnabon right there for old time’s sake. But somehow it still tasted like sob stories.
It’s 2pm already and I hadn’t had anything in my stomach. Should I go for Mexican? But I just had Mexican yesterday. Jeez, what difference does it make. I would be eating my illusions anyway. I turned the corner and walked into a record store called “School.” It is my refuge, my place of comfort. I remember that strong scent of laminated cardboard and PVC the moment I opened the door. I remember the fragrance of Roses De Chloe when Janice was with me in the record store. Janice would eagerly flip through the “New Arrival” boxes, tucking the new finds under her arm, eyes shimmering with excitement. The perfume came out of every pore of her body, travelled and moved in all directions, and eventually diffused in the air around me.
I bought myself a Scream’s 1985 release of “This Side Up.” I love looking at records spinning on my Technics SL-1210 — the way they spin hypnotizes me. I saw a wisp of white smoke rising above the turntable. Was it flying from between Janice’s lush and tender lips? Or was it foggy steam that formed above Janice’s boiling hot earl grey? It’s hard to tell because Janice would either have a cuppa or light up a joint while listening to records. But first she would always put the tea bag or the pre-roll under her nose and inhale as hard as she could and then look up at me with a grin.
I popped into my bar. It’s my bar because I spend way more semi-waking hours here than I am willing to admit and righteously blame my job for cutting into my drinking time. Adam the barkeep would pour me a Tullamore Dew and agree with me the world is fucked up and we are all fucked. I find a sense of home in these air particles carrying a mixture of odors: malt, hops, leather, sweat from regulars’ armpits with a dash of desperation and midlife crisis. I brought Janice here once. She said she loved it here but she needed to split because it was the opening night of a club across town and she needed to support her friend who was DJ-ing and she promised to come here with me again and drink ourselves silly and go home and make love and she could not wait for it though it never happened. I downed my fifth whiskey. A kid in a Sex Pistols tee came up to me and whispered do you have the stuff. He told me his girlfriend was experiencing a massive writer’s block for her songs and the stuff could keep her focused. In the middle of the bar a twenty-something was laughing loudly with his mate and they were both chatting up a girl. I saw them leaving together and having sloppy threesome in a shabby flat in the rundown part of the town while the roommate was listening on the other side of the wall. At the end of the bar a guy in his late thirtieth was drinking alone. He said he was diagnosed with cancer today and was not even sad and his girlfriend told him she felt trapped and could not live with him any more but she would always love him and miss him. I tried to make out their faces in dim light. They looked just like me. The girl was wearing Roses De Chloe like Janice. I felt like losing control. I should go home.
I shouldn’t be sulking. It is a blessing in disguise that I can no longer smell. No unpleasant odor can upset me now. Neither can Roses De Chloe or earl grey or weed or cinnamon. I can conjure up memories of these scents if I want to. I can conjure up scents of these memories if I want to. I can soliloquize about them at length and again and again to keep them fresh if I want to, even if their significance is diminished in the telling.