Can’t you smell it? The very essence of truth. You can’t make that up.
C’mon, really inhale. Smells don’t lie. I’ll tell you how it got there, then you’ll understand what you’re up against.
I’m not sure how it started, but it was definitely her fault. I never hated the old woman. I even tolerated her. She rarely left the bed and complained at ignorable volumes. I think it was her smell. There was something wrong with it. Not the plasticky skin cream, Chesterfields, or halitosis—it’s what wasn’t there. A lie by omission. Her hollow wickedness prodded me like a half-remembered dream. There was no escape. So I clenched. From my infected toenail, through my guts, all the way up to the birthmark on my forehead—I clenched all the way up and kept clenching.
Then the old woman turned eighty. How much longer could she live? How much longer could I keep clenching?
About noon, I slumped at her bedside. She wheezed among sticky lilies and sickly orchids. Bloated insects swam through the air and clambered across her arms and face. Mildew crept up the gift bags jutting from the graveyard of Hallmarks on the table.
The old woman ravaged boozy bonbons. I’d snuck three that morning. I planned on three or five or ten more later. The only thing louder than the champ of her dentures was that sucking sound she made before asking for more. She wasn’t supposed to have chocolate. Her shriveled rear protested. The smell! I gasped for air as the old woman loomed bigger and bigger.
I did the exercise my therapist told me to do. Trace your fingers and breathe. Inhale up. Pause at the tip. Exhale down. Even though that never works. Inhale up. Pause at the tip. Exhale down. The smell! Please! Please, no! I ran out of the room and cried the whole drive home.
Two bags of Cheetos later, the sun set. I fed my forty-seventh goldfish yeasty fish flakes and microwaved myself a TV dinner. I couldn’t sleep on the sweat-stained bed. Slumping on the couch, palm-to-mouthing pre-popped popcorn, I decided I was going mad. Between pulls on a weed vape, I realized I must banish that sputtering olfactory demon forever.
A sunrise and six packets of instant oatmeal later, the old woman crinkled open her last present. From inside a glaring white box, her mealy hands pulled out a flask with fluid the color of midnight whiskey or morning-after piss. She wrestled off the cap and pressed the nozzle.
PFFT.
The ads describe May roses, jasmine, and vague citrus. It leaves out the cloying soap and baby powder. “A daring fragrance, an opulent, abstract, mysterious bouquet with no dominant notes.” The “very essence of femininity.”
Please! Please, no!
KTTCH.
A switch, and I was five again, eyes wide open in bed. The bedroom door creaked open. There she stood, holding the wooden spoon. No, not the spoon again! And that smell! Grandma’s Chanel No. 5.
No, no, no, no, no. Notthis, notthis, notthis—
A voice rattled my skull: “OPEN YOUR EYES! FIGHT!”
I heaved my bulk at her. Her skeleton bounced off the headboard, scattering a halo of silverfish. Up went the bedspread over her skull. The voice rattled: “FIGHT, FATTY, FIGHT!” I fought through the endless hours between sunset and sunrise. I fought through the landfill of Marie Callender and Hot Pocket packaging. “HOLD HER DOWN!” Never saying the right thing in therapy. Never using anything with a wooden handle. “DON’T STOP!” She stopped moving. “NOT TILL SHE STOPS CLENCHING.” Then, she stopped clenching.
Can you smell it now? I knew that old bitch was full of shit.
I watched myself roll up the body in the sheets and shoulder it to the shed out back. The wonky floorboards came up, but the packed dirt wouldn’t. I emptied a storage tub and, one-two-three, stuffed in the bundle.
Back inside, my tingling hands replaced the sheets and covered them with the soggy bedspread. The budget AC really swamped up the place. I pulled at my shirt and the cotton peeled back like tired Velcro. Then, a trio of people tramped up the hall.
A middle-aged nobody and a pair of hags wanted to see the old woman. Maybe she went for a walk, I told them. They crowded into the room and questioned me further. I told them about the bus that comes by a quarter past noon, the one that goes to the casino. Then, I noticed her walker. They laughed and I tried to block it with my body. They kept laughing, but I couldn’t understand why. Then it came back—the smell! I gasped for air as they loomed bigger and bigger.
I did the exercise my therapist told me to do. Inhale up the finger. Pause. Exhale down. Surely they could smell it, too? Inhale up the finger. Pause. Exhale down. Smells don’t lie. Inhale up the finger. Pause. Exhale down. One of the hags picked up the flask.
PFFT.
Please! Please, no!
KTCH.
No, no, no, no, no. Notthis, notthis, notthis—
A voice rattled: “OPEN YOUR EYES! FIGHT!”
I yelled back—“Shut up! Shutup, shutup, shutup!”—and finally stopped clenching.
The first fart growled. The second roared. Then a trumpet of diarrhea blasted everyone away.
I lunged forward and the walker clanged to the floor. The middle-aged nobody knocked into the first hag, who spun, arms flung wide, and raked the second hag’s face. She pushed back, bouncing the first hag off the bed and into the table. It capsized, launching the flask across the room.
KSHDT.
There I stood, baptized in glass and the missing smells. With a feral scream, I trampled past the would-be visitors, dripping in perfume and shit and truth.
See what I’ve been through? I paid for clean clothes and that’s what I’m going to get. No more excuses. C’mon, how hard is it to get out a few bad smells?
END
About the Author
Nicholas De Marino is a neurodivergent writer of fiction, non-fiction, not fiction, un-fiction, and semi-fiction. He founded 5enses, published the first six years, and is a columnist at foofaraw. He has several writing credits, degrees, and accolades that have nothing to do with cats. Read more at nicholasdemarino.com.
