An Open Letter To The Lady By The Mailboxes Who Smelled Nice

Hello:

You won’t remember me, which is just as well because you also won’t be reading this, but we crossed paths on Thursday evening by the mailboxes as we were walking back to our respective cars.
You smelled nice.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to hit on you or anything. After all, I really didn’t even get a look at you, and if being attracted to someone by looks alone is shallow, where does being attracted to someone based on scent alone fall?
Besides, at this point I’m long past even bothering with hitting on women.
Anyway, the point is that I want to thank you for smelling nice because at that time I really needed it.
You see, I was stopping to get my mail on the way home from work, where I had just recently spent time giving the shift handoff to the person taking over my station.
What you need to know about this person is that his breath gives me an excuse to use the word fetid.
Noxious is another good word.
So is cachet, though it doesn’t actually apply in this case; it’s a good word and I seldom get to use it, so I’m just throwing it out there now while on the topic of good words.
Anyway, to return to the point, his breath is quite possibly the worst I’ve ever encountered.
It makes me think about Monitor Lizards, whose bite is toxic, not because they produce venom, but because their teeth are coated with the decaying remnants of previous kills.
That’s how his breath smells to me: like rotting meat.
Worse, not only does his breath broadcast outward, it hovers around him like some sort of aura. It’s as if his very being is suffused with this odor.
And it’s not just that it’s a bad smell. It’s more profound than that.
With the heavy stink of decay and rot it’s as if you’re confronting your own mortality as you stand there, eyes watering, breath held, with the muscles of your face trembling with the effort to keep from wincing too visibly, you are not just facing an unpleasant odor, you are confronting your own mortality.
On this particular occasion the smell had burrowed its way deep into my nose, periodically launching an olfactory assault as I drove home, and only finally being driven out by your clean, pleasant scent, that was rather like fresh lilacs, and which hung heavy, though not unpleasantly so, in the air as you walked past.
So thank you.

Gratefully yours,

Jon (The guy who breathed deeply and desperrately of your scent as you crossed paths by the mailboxes on Thursday evening)