The Scent Keeper

by Erica Bauermeister

Grief makes a tunnel of our lives, and it is all too easy to lose sight of the other people in the darkness with us—to wish they weren’t there, so their loss would stop rubbing up against ours.

Smells don’t care what the mind or heart wants, however. Scents will find their way around the darkness of closed eyes, slipping past barricades of thought. The body is their accomplice. We can live without food for weeks, and water for days, but try not to breathe and the lungs mutiny.

wunderkind at Inspire, Inc.” “A