�Tuesday, Clapham Picturehouse�

Local adverts, public safety warnings, too many phone numbers to remember
My mind wanders off into itself again
All of a sudden I could smell him
It wasn’t a lingering obvious odour
But just a split second waft
A sudden reminder that instantly threw him forward
What usually sits just behind my eyes
Or sleeps behind my fixed smile
Was there in front of my face, invisible, but very real
I’m not sure if I can pinpoint where the smell came from or where the memory originates…
I just know that it was him

 

This flash transports me back to kitchens, muffled voices, bedrooms, teenage streets, hospitals and curtains
Saturdays watching him lose tens of pounds on horse racing while I waited patiently for my pocket money to be won
Or on a Sunday with knife and fork in tough hardworking hands, smiling as the roast is dished up and the skin isn’t hairy or burnt this time
My mind returned to the cinema seat as the vanishing aroma transforms instant memories into nothing but heavy shoulders and welling tears…
Choked up thoughts begin to fade as the familiarity of the atmosphere becomes hazy and strange
These sensations are quickly replaced by the cold modern rush of the damn air conditioner
I frantically sniff the space around me
Getting tiny hints of something vanishing
I’m careful as I look to my right, slow in my hopeful preparation that he’d appear as my head turns…
Of course no one is there
The dark has the last laugh as the blackness can only see how disappointed I must have been looking sad at the seat next to me

I’m also conscious of the people sitting behind
Probably wondering why I’m heavy breathing with erratic nostril action
I stop, the trailers begin…
Silent, slumped low into my chair- suddenly aware of my own space in this empty row
Takes me a good twenty minutes to get into the flow of the film I’d come to see
In secret I deep sniff one last time hoping to catch a single sad hint that he might be here with me…
But the smell has gone.