V. was the first to send the seed that characterized I might not want what I think I want. She planted it on purple paper in a purple envelope and posted it to the box in which I'd get the same scent and shade a lot of days marked out of sequence, a lot of days so far after what was being replied to, my mind marked by the number of consecutive checks of an empty box, and then a day broken by the liberated logjam.
I saved each letter then, as one does in depictions of suchlike. Each was purple, each the same specific smell, solely how they're saved still. I don't know the name of the aroma but it's saved so well I'm sure I would know it again.
This is near opposite to how I think of my memory of personal happenings in general, and now that I really think about it, I'm not so sure that claims about olfactory memory aren't overblown. Like my feelings toward V., as she wrote to me then.
We had the song in common. At least we were in the same room when it played at successive dawnings, on which neither of us commented. I recall the silence except for the song. I didn't know the name of the artist but had that specific sense that I'd know the song again.
Concurrent to the germinating affair, saving the correspondence had practical reasons germane to the etymology. Coherence was nigh impossible sans reference to some corresponding question mark, what with multitudes being piloted post to post rapidly enough to take flight but too sluggishly to recollect specifics on arrival. Of no help was they were sent and came in clusters, whose inspiration in turn was fancy, but with no potential name.
This is just me of course. It's always just me. On the day the seed was planted, purple and perfumed, V. let me know how our undoing would be my doing, albeit indirect, and on an honest question. If I'd minded that lyric, and'd not just been assured of the sound, I might've sought to swap what we were thinking truly, instead of identifying alone with my own escape trigger.
The next plant bloomed soon enough, this time locally if far away from here and there. L. is a memory as vague as well as a mosaic too clustered. Still if I tried hard
enough I could conjure visions with lyrics she showed me using her voice
and roman letters in her spiral bound notebook.
L. had not been any real reason behind the previous alibi, but she offered the same out. This go round presented extra senses from beginning to end, easy to hear how our interests corresponded. Hers behind telling me how I couldn't be serious, mine sussing stronger this time I'd be wasting it. Eventually. The will had grown strong in such a short time.
Then the third. More years between us than had elapsed since the last, ours was the well-defined disparity accord. Not that her half's habitually apt to set my lot straight, howbeit off I'd be sent. Looking back, it was good sense.
But the source is the first, the fruit of V., the least ripe at the time and still now, what flagrantly fragrant throughout lingers most distinct in a cloud.
