Scent

Scent is a funny thing. I just spent my requisite dawdling time at New Seasons gauging the accuracy of a myriad of bottles promising, among other things, the scent of childhood dreams, allure, moonlight and clarity.
I keep a trifle thing in a box to remember less for the thing and more for the way it still smells of him, miraculously; his laundry detergent or skin or pocket. I rarely open the box for fear the smell will dissipate a bit with each opening. I know the thing may smell more of the box than him but that is the way I remember.
French parfumeur Thierry Mugler recently launched a limited edition of scents based on the novel “Perfume” with fifteen scents mimicking everything from a baby’s skin to a virgin’s. Human Existence includes the essence of rare cheeses. Orgie emits chocolate as well as molecules mimicking sweat and sperm. For $700, you can smell all this, along with the Scent of Paris in 1738 and much more.
Ah, but there are things you would pay much more to smell again, aren’t there? Scent; the most overlooked sense. You forget it and then, all at once, it comes back to you, floods your nostrils and constricts your heart before your mind can catch up with the memory.