I was driving down the highway on my way to school. It was a normal day, kinda nice out. Raining lightly, which I like. A vast improvement over the wintery haze of the past three months. I got a bit distracted, and didn't see the skunk in the middle of the road. I hit it.
My nose was immediately assaulted by an awful smell. The stench of skunk musk mixing with urine, the odious fumes of escaping gases, and the sickly sweet smell of decay. Evidently, the skunk had been lying there for awhile.
I thought that in time, the smell would pass. But I kept driving, and even miles later, I still smelled it. I assumed that there must be skunk guts and whatnot on one of my tires, so I let it go. When I got to school, and opened the door, the smell got stronger. "Bingo," I thought, as I started walking to class, "I'll be glad to get away from this."
So I walked away, but I could still smell it, sitting in class. In my office. In the coffee shop. Anywhere I went on campus, I could smell it. Funny thing, it never faded. When I walked back to my car, it didn't get any stronger. So I drove home. As I began to eat dinner, I realized everything tasted like dead skunk. Wherever I turned, I could see the dead skunk out of the corner of my eye. Soon, I became aware that the only sound I heard was that faint crunch-squish-pop noise. So, this seemingly minor incident had pervaded all of my senses, and I couldn't figure out why.
Then it hit me like a forty-mile freight train driven by a bulldozer. I've been smelling it for three years. Only now have I started to notice it. And yet, it seems no one else does. It's all around them, and yet, they carry on, as if they can still taste that shitty coffee in the overpriced corporate logo cup. Like they can smell the fresh rain. Like they can hear what each other are saying.
So, i learned my lesson. I'm going to pay careful attention from now on, so that the next time I see a skunk in the road, I can hit it on purpose.
Or fucking kill me.
Nice :mittens:
Does kinda make one wonder how we ignore all the nastiness around us and support the bubble of our lives. Overexposure and conditioning, extreme distraction, masking? All of the above... more?
Nice, Phox.
Someone used OKM properly!
:mittens:
TGRR,
Is so fucking happy!
The vivid non-visual description, the lead up, the metaphor and the link into other things = :mittens:
Great work Phox!
:mittens:
I feel like that a lot too, Phox. I work like a madwoman to erase the "smell" and the thoughts of what keeps it lingering in the air. To no avail, of course, in the end, but it occupies the time.
Lovely piece.
:mittens:
That was really good, Phox.
It makes me think about how people can't smell their own apartment, but your guests can. And how smells might be pungent initially but gradually it fades into the background—both of which compliment your point.
Thanks guys. :)
Sweet. :mittens: A Skunk, by any other name would be gilding the stinky.