Nepenthe

摘要

It wasn’t that he smelled different to each person. Rather, there were simply no known odors with which to compare Jake Longaway, leaving each person who came in contact with him to grasp for some familiarity that never came close to reality. I brainstormed on legal pads and designed elaborate spreadsheets to try and unravel each nuance. Eventually I landed on this: to me he smelled like the air rushing through my high school carpool’s slivered windows on a brisk autumn morning.