The Smell of Skunk

My Madeleine

Unlike most people I know, I love the smell of skunk. This unforgiving mixture of sulphur and alcohol that scientists call butyl mercaptan operates for me like the madeleine did for Proust. It prods to life memories that might otherwise have stayed buried in the past, and by doing so, it illustrates the complex associations between time and place, youth and age, and me, the individual person I am, and the…