I went on a road trip with my son to the coast the day after my experiment with 3 cigars. He turned and looked at me and asked. “Do you smell something off?”
I took a breath stared out at the road, I had just smelled a wave a smoke leaking out of me. “I think it is me.” My skin felt dry and ash washed. I could smell the smoke in my hair follicles and releasing from my skin. I felt like a bleached log from the remains of a fire. My nares were drenched in it too.
After that night I had stripped and washed myself with tea tree soap and brushed my teeth two times. I washed my hair a few times same with my body. The next two days I felt smoke and smelled it about me.
I was relieved at being done but now the rewrite makes me smile. The living of an experience seems to surpass the imagining since it includes smell, touch and sight. The inconvenient moments and the triumphs of elements.
To make my point clear here is the first paragraph of the rough draft:
“I puff on my cigar and the fragrant smoke circles my head. Cold shearing wind burns my face and I stare out at the great rocks. The fog is dense and the sky moonless. I leave the cigar in the corner of my mouth and clap my hands together. I bring them together to my face and breath into them. Shirley will scowl and demand I change when I return home. “That smell is everywhere, not appropriate for the grandchildren!” I can hear it all even though it hasn’t happened yet.”
Here is the rewritten two paragraphs:
“Cold shearing wind burns my face. I take a breath, take a draw of warm spicy air from my cigar. I let it roll off my tongue and around my mouth warming me. The smoke moves in the air making my eyes tear as it hits. The fog is dense with a moonless sky. I imagine the beach looks dark with just this hovering ember.
A chill runs through me as I stare at the shadow of the great rocks. I leave the cigar in my mouth clap my hands together in the stinging wind to generate sparking warmth in them. The ocean waves fill my ears. I bring my hands to my face and smell the cigar and salty air. Unbidden, I hear my wife’s voice in my head and imagine her scowling face. Anticipating an inedible event her voice ringing out, “That smell is everywhere, not appropriate for the grandchildren!”
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