The Smell of Other Worlds

Every two months or so, I go to the médiathèque for a life drawing session, and the atmosphere is always strangely reverent, as if we’re about to summon a gentle, well-meaning ghost. We set up our easels and chose our pencils and charcoal with a kind of quiet determination, all trying to look like we know what we’re doing. 

Our instructor says something philosophical like, “It’s all about seeing, not drawing,” or “focus on the negative space,” which we all nod at gravely, despite none of us being entirely sure what positive space is doing wrong. 

Sometimes we even do a physical warm-up: loosening shoulders, breathing mindfully, performing small circles with the neck as if we’re preparing to audition for a very gentle cult. There is always gratitude expressed, formally, as though we’re about to thank the muses for not smiting us.

Halfway through, we stop for a tisane - because of course we do - and examine each other’s work with the supportive delicacy of people handling a wounded bird. It’s earnest, soothing, and faintly ridiculous in the best possible way. By the end, we’re all a little smudged, a little proud, and carrying the kind of gentle glow that comes from spending two hours trying not to draw a foot that looks like a baked potato.

Then we leave.

And as we shuffle down the corridor, still light-headed from all the herbal steam and artistic humility, we pass the room next door - the other congregation.

The smell arrives before the sound: a humid, unapologetic wall of air that feels like someone steamed a teenager. It has texture. It has opinions - a pungent blast tinted with mildew and angst.

Inside, they are beginning their ritual. All of them in black T-shirts, leather jackets strewn over chairs like moulted skins. Energy drinks lined up like neon potions. Rows of miniature warriors stare into the middle distance with heroic conviction, while their human counterparts look like they’ve been defeated by a set of stairs.

We don’t make eye contact. We don’t need to. We exist in parallel universes separated only by a thin wall and dramatically different olfactory priorities.

I want to be absolutely clear - I have no issue with gamers. They’re doing something imaginative and communal. It’s the sensory contradiction that fascinates me. Specifically:

Why do people who spend hours imagining enchanted forests and elven citadels choose to gather in a room that smells like a hockey team’s laundry basket?

Their fantasy worlds are lush with pine forests and bubbling streams. Their characters travel through mist and moonlight. Yet the actual atmosphere they’ve created is… well, different. A cocktail of warm polyester, caffeinated breath, and the faint tang of damp carpet tiles installed during the Mitterrand administration.

And the snacks!
My goodness, the snacks.

Given the scale of their quests, you might expect mead, roasted meats, perhaps a horn of something frothy and medieval. Instead: Pringles. Doritos. Pre-packaged sandwiches whose salad has given up and is now a philosophical idea rather than a vegetable.

The miniatures on the table look like they eat better than the players.

I genuinely admire the commitment. But a small part of me wants to burst into the room with armfuls of velvet cloaks and shout, “Lads. We can do better. We already have the imagination - now let’s work on the ambience.”

A fire pit.
A wooden table.
A few leather pouches.
A tentative, experimental gulp of mead.
Even just opening a window would do wonders.

But the truth is, they don’t need any of that. They vanish into their worlds effortlessly, smell or no smell. Their imaginations are doing all the heavy lifting. They are adventurers, paladins, sorcerers — temporarily freed from the indignity of the physical body.

Meanwhile, our room smells of wood shavings, warm paper, and the faint herbal optimism of tisanes. The contrast is… dramatic. Whenever we step past their doorway, still glowing with the quiet nobility of having tried to draw a shoulder that didn’t look like a playground slide, we are momentarily reminded that the human imagination is magnificent, but the human body, left unchecked in a closed space, is a democratic equaliser.

Both rooms are, in their own ways, escapes.
Both are attempts to make meaning.
Both groups leave feeling better than when they arrived.

The only difference is the smell.

And frankly, I know which world I prefer.