The Anosmatic & The Snow

[Deborah Jovan Reed]

Growing up anosmatic I have never been able to recognize soured milk, rotted meat, or smoke from a fire as it tore through my house yet, quizzically, I have always been able to smell the snow.

For as long as I can remember, without getting out of bed to look out the window, I could wake up and know instinctively if the fine white powder had fallen to Earth and littered every nook and cranny of my yard.

~

Lamenting all winter how I haven't seen a single flake my co-workers figure I'd be overjoyed with the weather report declaring impending snowfall in the morning, but I shrugged it off remarking, "I'll believe it when I see it."

~

I woke up today and from my bed I can see outside the window and in the horizon, lining the parking lot, is a row of white cars and vans.

Leaping out of bed in delight I hope that living on the 9th floor of an apartment complex for the first time in my life I've simply been too high up to smell the snow.

There are too many white government vehicles in this city, It didn't even rain.

[Michael J. Malervy]

Excellent 6S!  Yout story almost makes me miss the snow.

[Deborah Jovan Reed]

@ Kristine - the fact we ended up having snow made my day, although I still wished it was waiting for me when I'd woke up that day.  Also, anosmia has it's pros and cons: PROS: you can't detect other peoples odors - especially halitosis when they are talking dead at you. kennels and diapers aren't as unbearable (though still nasty to look at). CONS: you can't tell if something has started to go bad, is bad... you can't tell if your apartment or your clothes smell, maybe your own breath when you didn't brush your mouth as good as you thought.  Recent example: I'd been sick the day before - vomiting - and I thought I'd brushed it away enough but was told by a co-worker the next morning she smelled it.  Very embarrassing.

[Kristine_ES]

i'm not sure what would be harder to endure, anosmia...or that it didn't even rain! bring on the rain! (which i like better than snow.)   interesting Six, i learned something here. 

[Deborah Jovan Reed]

you should have read the first draft... i was writing before i looked outside and when i did i had to change my last three sentences (for the better i think)... tsk-tsk... i was taking a break from cleaning and still had no idea it'd began to snow until i checked the newsfeed on facebook.  i hold to my claim being too far above ground.

[Angela]

Oh, no!  This was a fine story - an odd enough premise to capture my attention, and a light sort of universal-feeling disappointment at the end, all told with good humor.

[Deborah Jovan Reed]

... and now we have snow.  Am beyond delighted.

[Deborah Jovan Reed]

Thanks Gita. I think I enjoyed your comment more than my own 6S.  I never knew snow covered smells, makes it all the more interesting a phenom I think.

[Gita]

What an interesting phenomenon, not being able to smell all the sour and rotten smells in a city. I like everything about this piece.

I absolutely know what you mean about a change in smell when the snow falls. Normally, we go about our lives smelling the soil and damp leaves and fallen pine needles. But when it snows, those scents are covered, absent. So in a way, we know that it has snowed by the absence of aroma. Two sides of a coin, I guess.