Why Does One Scent Scare Me.
You wouldn’t remember your trauma, but your nose would.
Before all this pandemic was a thing and the public transport systems were still jam packed, I suddenly found myself in panic. My heart was racing, I felt threatened and my 28 year old self was looking for a possible escape. And then I stopped and asked myself,
“From whom am I running away?”
Then my brain asked me, “Don’t you smell him? Don’t you smell fear?”
“Tap, Tap, Tap” the sound of the footsteps on the granite floor was coming closer sending chills down our spine, just like any other morning. We, a bunch of 11–16 year old boys, never knew what doom was to befall us that day.
Would he think my wardrobe was unkempt? Would he think my bed has trampled sheets? Would he find a drop of dirt under my bed which I cleaned and cleaned for an hour? — We were scared to the bones.
Soon the upper wind brings this familiar scent, a fruity death stench, I would call it; a perfume I still don’t know the name of, yet can make my heart race, my adrenaline to pump, and all my sympathetic actions to go on full force.
My body was ready for a fight or a flight reaction but in reality neither fight nor flight were ever in the options for that 11…
