That Scent of Woe

There’s that old smell in the air. But where, or when, does it come from?

Thunderstorms all over.

An overcast sky predicts the sombre mood, marred only by roads undone in the rains and by political tugs-of-war. Vehicles make their commute under a dappled sky, animals find relief from relief, and the wind rears its hooves to gallop on airways.

But not all is well. It’s that musty petrichor, you see. Its heady scents have penetrated the sponges of my sinuses. Only downfall from here.

And so begins the cascade of memories. Masked in nostalgia, each is a welcome sight for sore eyes. Until one isn’t.

I close my eyes and find myself under shade. I’m small enough not to remember how I am, but old enough to be one of the many kids in this crèche. Why this crèche? It’s close to my parents’ offices, closer to my school. But distant in my memories. Perhaps unearthed only by thunderclaps in the present.

Why am I here?

What is it that my brain remembers that it did not want me to remember?

The present clocks out. The wind chimes in. It’s a 4 o’clock sun beating over a sand-pit, gravel-infused playground of the crèche. Bright paints of red, green, and yellow are flaking due to overuse by small, grubby hands.

How many kids are there? Four? Five? Including me? Memory fails but for one.

It’s not that I don’t know the other kids. I have that faint outline of their features embedded in some cranial fold. It’s hard to make them out. But that one kid, he’s in sharper focus. My lens is clouded, but not rose-tinted. It’s 4:05 now, and the heat is only relenting to give evening its due course.

Why am I remembering this? A thunderclap jogs my memory further. It’s not pleasant. Not what the petrichor promised.

The kids have a plan. Not the one I can see, but those I can hear. He is oblivious. Oblivious to the machinations of little fiends who project the biases they’re raised in.

He’s different, you see. Different in every way. He’s a teenager, while we are all not even at the cusp of the partly-ripe age of ten. And yet he is younger. Younger in mind. Younger than we are. Perhaps he will never . . .

The smell of potato fritters jolts my consciousness. It is hurting. Not from the memory but from the hurt it is about to experience, or re-experience, down this lane.

It’s almost there now. But I then reread the text on my phone. Social media. Mean kids. Bullies. An incident that took place. The progenitor of this journey, the trigger for the neuron that connected the deepest darkness to full-bright consciousness.

I blink and miss the present.

The kids have a plan. And I, somehow, am a willing observer in it. There is a wrapper from a chocolate that one of the kids’ parents bought for them. A glazed plastic of succulent silver on the inside, shelled by angry crimson on its obverse. The chocolate, of course, now resides in the crimson insides of the kid who hatched this plan. Nonetheless, that wrapper might just prove useful beyond its lifeless goals.

The sand pit of slides, swings, and bars is an open invitation for fun. It’s also the source of more fun yet to be had. The kid grabs a handful of its contents and empties them into the wrapper, now smoothed out. With pebbles centred, as if piths of a devil fruit, he (or she, I cannot recall) wraps it neatly in the shape the wrapper previously held.

This “prank” is now an offering to the one I cannot take my eyes off of. I remember his name now. Not the kid who wrapped the sand in the disguise of a chocolate, but the one who sat idly under the shaded veranda.

Fez, for I do not wish to reveal his real name, was possibly the only child of his parents. In the passage of time, he stood still. He had to be helped: to be walked, to be sat, to be addressed. And even then, I never knew if he could ever register all that went around him. As a child, I found Fez to be odd. Not like me, but not like anyone else. The way he was, the way he looked, it all would creep me out.

To his parents, though, Fez was everything. Or at least I hope he was. I never knew of his household. Nor will I ever find out. All I did know was that his parents were visually impaired. To them, sight was not a matter of judgement. It’s only those of us with this unnerving gift who use it to decide whom to bequeath love to.

And so, as it was, his parents would leave him in the crèche for some time. To do adult things, I suppose. What would the child me know? I was limited in my vision to see the machinations of the world. But those of the kids, I did see. That wrapper was now making its way to Fez. I felt a knot in my stomach. What was to happen? Was it excitement? Was it trepidation? Or something I did not know? The kids were excited, and so I, like a sheep, followed them to the veranda. To belong.

Fez took the “chocolate.” There was a singsong appreciation of how tasty it was, of its creamy texture and sweetness. Honeyed words to lull him.

His uncoordinated hands had some grip. While his eyes betrayed any hint of recognising the malice in others, his fingers moved with a surety. Expectancy. A gift, for him? Or was that me projecting what was to come?

The wrapper came undone. The sand fell in a curtain of disappointment. Fez was stupid. A fool made even a bigger fool. Laughter cascaded in the veranda.

But I found myself dumbstruck. The knot within tightened. I felt like puking. Fez couldn’t speak. His frustration came out in incoherent yelps. But I could hear him. Oh, I could hear him, all right. Through the veranda’s cacophony, through the sand pits soaked in the rain, through the thunderclap of the present.

Was this the price to belong? To be part of a society that mocks you for your differences? Even those that you had no control over since your birth.

I tried to look into his eyes. Fez had brilliant iris shades. What did he ever see? That he could never belong with other kids? And I? I was standing there. Observant is equally compliant in the blindfolded eyes of justice. That bright sunny day, shy of a cool evening, had turned icy cold like the present. Thunderstorms brewed the guilt of the past and hung my head in shame.

The petrichor-infused nostalgia belied the truth of the past. It never rained that day. Dry as the hearts of those kids who shunned different indifferently. A quirk of their families that I received firsthand.

There was a hint of petrichor, though.

A single, hot tear streaked through oblivious cheeks and landed on the clump of sand spilled on Fez’s pants.