For me, it is Bleach. The smell of Bleach. To be precise, it is the smell of Bleach, diluted with warm water and dragged over white tiles with a damp and clean sponge-mop. As the streaks evaporate and the smell of watered down Bleach lingers with only a hint at its potency - that smell. I like that smell.
It is not nostalgic nor evocative nor comforting nor escapist. It is just a smell. It is its own thing and I like it for what it is - without your judgment or need to explain it to or for me.
The time some waiter told me that he liked the smell of Gasoline, was the first time I realised that folks out there like some fucked-up smells. Gasoline? The smell that rises up off those few drop that drip out when you pull the nozzle back out of the tank at the gas station? That smell? Really? Why?
Because he did. Because I like Bleach. Because her neighbor likes a reed diffuser set (do you know what that is?) that pushes out a sickly sweet and thick odor, that can only be described as: a plastic cup of coconut bubble tea sweetened with a kilo each of icing sugar, sweet & low and stevia, so that it's almost glowing.
Because your Mum likes the smell of the ink and paper in the glossy magazines at her divorce lawyer's reception. That smell is also there at her personal trainer's, her realtor's and her osteopath's. Because his boyfriend likes the smell of nail polish remover. Because they said they like smell of wet dirt.
Because you like what you like. Whatever weird smell you like. You goddamn, fucking weirdo.
Farringdon is such a fun word to say.
Say it:
Farringdon.
It can also be a dramatic word to say, if you can pull together a partly hoarse voice filled with a jumble of recognition, remorse and wistfulness.
Farringdon.
It is after midnight and I'm not drinking nor drugging - neither myself nor someone else. So it is just me and the beige mist and the cotton touch of the sheets and the still, thick warmth trapped and left over in the room - even though the heat of a blazing afternoon has long set off and away. That balmy, floating atmosphere tangles and fights with the cool breeze entering in off the fly-screen door that opens out onto a timber-slat decked courtyard.
Except those slats ain't no timber.
They're plastic or resin or composite or something. I'm not exactly sure. I just know they are not timber. The landlord told me that. We were signing the lease and he hadn't said much and I'd asked even less. The questions usually come when one party doesn't pay the rent or another party doesn't fix the rusted hot water system. But I was just signing the lease and he was just giving me the keys. Neither of us had any need for questions. I just silently scribbled away and he spoke none.
Except for on his way out.
He picked up the papers and after putting a hand on the front door handle, he turned back around, pointed with his chin and said:
