“I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.” ~ Vincent van Gogh
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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Smells of the Town

Perfume from one pharmacy, faint and floral. A sort of sterilised smell from the next, almost a non-smell, but stifling.

From the Austral Cafe I expect warm, savoury odours of the all-day breakfast, but there is only a whiff of tobacco from the cigarette butts in the ashtray outside.

The day is hot but there is just a trace in the air of the smell of coming rain.

In Coles a large, handsome man wearing only board shorts and a piece of cloth tying his ponytail drinks deeply from a big plastic bottle of milk before putting it into his trolley. I want to be close to enjoy looking at him, but his smell drives me away. He doesn’t look dirty but he smells unwashed — not reeking but stale. I decide he must be homeless.

2 comments:

  1. A hot day is a good day to observe smells. Too bad the young man didn't live up to first glance.

    ReplyDelete
  2. He wasn't all that young, actually. But good to look at from distance!

    ReplyDelete

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