When Aroma Met Smelly

Deep beneath the city, within the - old - dark - dank - sewers,
lived a really disgusting - smell. He'd been there years of course; but
as autumn turned into winter, winter into spring and finally spring
into summer, and it got progressively warmer the smell would wonder
what the world beyond was like. He gazed longingly at his only source
of light, a long flickering shaft from a grate in the street above,
until finally the smell thought.

'Go on; take a look. Can't do you any harm just to look, now can
it?'

Persuading himself, he edged forward slowly rising between the cast
iron slats of the grate to gaze at the world from which he had been
excluded for so long.

'Wow!' he exclaimed 'Look at this! It's fantastic! So many more colours
than just plain brown. Big shiny metallic things, rolling along on
round rubbery blobs, growling and farting smoke. The people, he'd seen
before when they came down into his world to clear blockages; but now,
so many of them! Funny little furry things too, on four legs, with
waggy tails, panting and slavering at the mouth. Strange fluffy flappy
things, zooming through the air at great speed, whistling and
tweeting.

And so, encouraged by what he saw, the smell moved on, out from the
confines of his sewer into the world at large.

A very stern looking lady of about sixty, with blue rinsed grey hair,
walking along with her smaller, wizened, shrew like husband, took in
quite a large lung full of the smell.

"Ugh! Is that smell you Norman? If I've told you once, I've told you
twice, not to eat Muriel Entwistle's pilchard sandwiches. You no very
well your plumbing can't take it since your op."

"But?" he retorted.

"No buts Norman." She replied, cutting him dead before he had chance to
explain.

'Alright dear, anything you say, my sweet.' Norman surrendered.

The smell moved on enjoying his new-found freedom.

"500 grams of sausages please." Said the next customer in the butcher's
shop. He was a 'no nonsense' kind of man, apt to call 'a spade a
spade'. He preferred a real butchers shop to the supermarket. You can
only get real sausages from a real butchers shop of course.

"Poooaw!" he said, "perhaps not, I've changed my mind, them sausages is
off mate."

"What do you mean m' sausages is off!" retorted the butcher; "I'll have
you know, I've got prizes for m' sausages. I only ever use the freshest
ingredients, they're not off!"

"Bloody well are mate - they stink!"

"I'll give you stink. Here smell this!" raged the butcher, planting a
punch squarely on his customer's nose.

The smell moved on.

A young lady in her twenties, not yet tired of the summers abundance of
colourfully scented blooms, stooped to admire the roses in a near by
flower bed. Intent on getting the most from the delicate fragrance, she
inhaled deeply, promptly fainted from shock and plummeted face first
into the rose bed; scratching her face badly. There she remained, until
a nice young man of a similar age - smitten by the young lady's looks
before she had taken her plunge- helped her to her feet. She eventually
married him and had two children one of who became - well anyway that's
another story.

A light breeze carried the smell still further until he chanced upon a
department store. He managed to negotiate the revolving door without
being dispersed too much and found himself in the luggage
department.

'Yes it is real leather madam" reassured the sales assistant. 'Look
smell it. There's nothing like the smell of real leather.'

His customer lent forward to smell the bag.

'I think young man you have a hygiene problem, the bag smells fine but
you smell awful. Where is your manager? I've been coming in this store
for years and?'

The smell meandered further into the store, a dear old lady almost
died, a child was sick and one gentleman, who'd had beans the night
before, looked decidedly embarrassed.

----------------------------------------

She, had lived all her life in more or less the same place. Born in
Paris, she arrived in England at an early age and had lived for much of
her life, in a bottle on the shelf of the stores perfumery department.
She, had rather a fine name and was very proud of herself. She, was not
a smell of course. Oh no; she, was a fragrance. From her vantage point
on the shelf she had a splendid view of the rest of the store;
all-be-it somewhat distorted due to the thickness of the glass
bottle.

So it was, that on this particular day she watched with excitement as a
young lady arrived at the counter and pointed towards her position on
the shelf.
The gaily painted perfumery counter assistant reached up and took down
the bottle. Taking hold of the lid she unscrewed the top and gently
eased a drop of fragrance out on to the young lady's upturned
wrist.

The fragrance seized her opportunity and leapt for freedom. At large at
last, the people she passed breathed deeply as if suddenly starved of
oxygen to take in as much of her aroma as possible. Men turned with
furtive glances toward women they thought suddenly irresistible and the
women turned their attentions to the array of different perfumes on
view, scanning the selection wondering which one could be responsible
for such a fine and delicate aroma.

Drifting on through the store she became suddenly aware of not being
alone. A feeling, best described, as the feelinhg one gets in the
presence of someone or something great. She became aware that a smell
of great magnitude had arrived. Obviously a smell to respect. Even
though this smell was from the opposite end of the spectrum, as it
were; she was taken by his obvious command of the situation and the
profound effect he was having on people. He in turn had noticed her. He
liked her class; this was obviously not the smell of the gutter he had
chanced upon.

They do say opposites attract and in this case they certainly did. They
approached one another with mutual respect and finally when they
thought they could stand it no longer they were carried into each
other's presence, mingling and dancing on every slight change in air
pressure in a kind of air born aromatic marriage dance. Strangely the
two combined created the perfect harmony and oblivious now to their
surroundings, both were sucked from the store by an air conditioning
vent and born over the horizon by an easterly breeze to live happily
ever after, somewhere and everywhere east of beyond.