A scent

But of course a scent does not exist in a vacuum.

(I meant that metaphorically, but it poses an interesting scientific question.)

You might think that because it floats freely, disembodied, scent is not connected to anything at all.

Imagine.

You are walking into the Sears store in Honolulu, the one in the big mall outside Waikiki. You take the escalator to the floor where they sell formal wear. If you’re going to hang out with Honolulu’s Sinatra, who enjoys buying you a tiny dish of ice cream after each night’s last show and gossiping about what’s going on in Chinatown, who learned 14 languages by approaching them as if they were songs, who after the ice cream insists that you kiss on both cheeks and actually takes your head in his hands when you try to get away with air-kisses before putting you into a cab, who really does, like so many discredited men, want nothing more (but what could be more?) than companionship, then you need to have the cool Mamo mu’u, not some hippie calico thing picked up in the Salvation Army in Hilo. You are riding the escalator. Imagine a scent.

Hold on! First it strikes you. Then it floods you. Before you can name the scent, you feel… you are gone.

Don’t take a tumble! Hold onto the handrail!

You are on an escalator, but it is not the one in Honolulu. It is in Detroit, and you are so little you don’t even know how old you are, and your dad has the warm bag in his hand.

It is roasted peanuts.

Scent connects.