STENCH

I smell.

Clearly… because I was given perfume.

Not the bargain in a box, smells like grandmas undies drawer type of perfume. The good stuff.

It’s the best smelly liquid I’ve ever smelled! And it’s in a tricky, hey this is expensive, just look at the bottle, it’s better than the items in your wardrobe, type bottle.

Given the obvious worth of the smelly liquid, I spritz sparingly.

Yes… I spritz.

I love it so much I carry it everywhere, as a reminder that at any moment, I can turn my life into a Vogue commercial. Yes I’m picking the kids up from school in my runners (are they for running?) with my unwashed hair pulled back and my hands smelling of bleach from cleaning the toilet, but in one spritz, I transform into the exotic mysterious woman who emerges from a glorious water source with pouty lips and a radiant bod as nature envelops me. Apparently.

Anyhoo, it smells nice.

But guess what. The nozzle broke.

Nozzle.

The little pressure thingy that disperses smelly liquid when depressed with your finger.

It’s broken… so I CANT SPRITZ!!

I’m spritzless. non-spritzed, spritz deficient, spritz disabled, unable, incapable of spritzation.

What if the only way to get to the smelly stuff, to share and enjoy its aroma, is to break the bottle?

But the bottle is so beautiful. I can’t break it.

So I put it up on the shelf, and I look at it. I know I have that beautiful smelly liquid inside there. I am now content to look at it.

I own it. Its mine.

It’s encased in such a beautiful bottle, I’m not willing to break it. I can tell people I have it, show them even. But to share it, to break the bottle, would come at too high a cost, so I become happy to bask in the contentment of knowing I once experienced it, and that I still own it, even if it is encased, imprisoned, denied life by my own fear of losing what I hold most dear. The bottle.

The bottle now holds more value to me than the smelly liquid. I start to forget what it smells like, to experience the fresh daily spritz. As my memory of the scent fades I am content to look at the bottle and live secure in the knowledge that I still have the smelly liquid, although I can’t smell it anymore.

I realise I need to do something about my odour, so I look around, and I find another perfume. A cheap imitation, for sure, but no one else can tell the difference. This perfume is good, but it doesn’t quite measure up. So I find myself layering. I buy more and more perfumes, I spritz them daily, hourly, constant spritzing, but I can never quite get the same invigorating aroma of that first liquid, the real thing.

I buy more and more perfumes and place them on my shelf until it is overflowing, and my bottle gets shoved to the back, forgotten.

I smell.

I smell of the stench of false scent. I crave freedom, life, and freshness.

I search at the back of my shelf and retrieve the bottle, I hold the bottle in my hands, it’s up to me.

Am I willing to break it?