The Train

"Train bound for... Please mind the gap."

The train PA system blares as I hurriedly dash to the next available seat. To my left is a young woman in shorts and long, kitschy fingernails. Her hands fondle her iPhone and she gets a call from her boyfriend every 5 minutes or so. Her voice low and muttering words in a language that I can't decipher.

Stop after stop. Passengers alight and leave at regular intervals. The doors open like the sea--fresh faces at every wave, each smell different. Freshly-bathed, perfume-soaked or one-day old underwear smells wafting through the carriage. Held my breath at particular cycles to avoid nausea.

Then a couple boarded. She with a smile that lights up a room and skin allergies on her arms and neck due to seafood most likely. He with the black, thick-rimmed glasses and chinky-eyed features. Unlikely couple but, love knows no race, culture, and background.

All seats taken. They stand in front of me with her hand on his left back pocket. They look into each other's eyes and laugh at an in-joke that no one else hears. He puts an arm around her and guides her to the seats across mine as the other passengers get off at the next stop.

She strokes his arms and I hear her say, "So smooth!" to which he smiles and glides his fingers across her allergies until his hand finds hers; their faces inches away from each other. I thought of you and I wondered what it would be like to hold you again.

We all got off at the same station. My heart was left in the train as the doors closed. Please mind the gap.

Scents 101

Growing up I had a penchant for smells though most of the time my nose would be stuffy due to allergic reactions and sneezing fits. But when I wouldn't have those allergic spells, I just love to sniff away and commit each scent to memory. So when Patrick Süskind's book, "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer", came out, it was definitely a read that I could relate to (sans the murder part).

Anyway, as I was walking towards the campus one afternoon to return the borrowed books, I was bombarded again with lots of smells that brought back recent and long-forgotten memories--starting with a lady who passed me by and wore Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle. I then recalled an interview with a lomographer last year and I couldn't help but ask her what her perfume was because it was so deliciously intoxicating: Coco Mademoiselle.

Walking a couple of paces; the smell of burning leaves. As a child, every afternoon, one of our adopted older brothers or "kuyas" would burn dried leaves to smoke the duhat* tree to make it bear fruit and it also reminded me of the afternoons spent at my cousins' house when some of the older relatives would burn leaves in the backyard.

So while walking I sort of came up with a list of pleasant and nasty smells that I really like:
1. Issey Miyake Pour Homme
2. Hugo Boss
3. Ralph
4. Coco Mademoiselle
5. Cool Water Pour Homme et Pour Femme
6. Clinique Happy
7. Anything from Victoria's Secret
8. Cucumber-melon lotion/cologne
9. Vanilla
10. Chocolate
11. New books and their printed pages
12. Cinnamon
13. Freshly-baked bread
14. Freshly-bathed babies
15. Babies who just drank milk/baby's breath
16. Rain or rather the smell of fresh earth during a sudden downpour (this is bad according to my grandma because it gives one a tummy ache. In Tagalog, the term would be: alimuom (ah-lee-moo-ohm))
17. Garlic and onions (sautéed)
18. Burning leaves
19. Burning rubber
20. Gasoline (sometimes--my sister would tell me that I'm probably an arsonist by heart...hehehehe)
21. Rugby (not the sport but the adhesive)
22. Freshly-painted rooms or anything with a fresh coat of paint
23. Old books and their musty pages
24. Musty old smell under the sink
25. Weird smell behind the ears
26. Weird navel smell
27. Farts (there are some that smell unexpectedly ok, depends on what you ate)

It's not a pretty impressive list and a far cry from Grenouille's acute sense of smell--I cannot, even if I close my eyes, distinguish the scent of the nearby trees and could only go as far as breathing in the smell of the drying grass near the pavement.


*Duhat-black plum; Philippine medicinal plant.