Monday, July 30, 2007

Redolent

fragrant; suggestive or evocative (adj)

[under construction]

Red sat on the proch as he had sat every morning since he could sit upright. He wore the blue plaid shirt and overalls his mother dressed him in and a clean white undershirt with clean white breifs underneath the overalls. His face, as it had been since he entered the world through the drug-abused gates of his mother's legs twentysomething years ago, was crumpled into itself. Every facial muscle stretched or flexed or tensed towards his nose which was pristinely tanned and the only well-built structure on his face. His eyes were shit tight and his eyebrows wrinkled in and his mouth screwed up upwards and his cheeks were set square from a perpetually clamped jaw. All lines connected and pointed to the olfactory center of his face.
His mother, his caretaker, his only companion, came outo n the porch with a plate of bacon, eggs, and grits and Red's hands went flying toward the food, his face unchanging except an accented noise from his nasal inhalations raking against his sinuses.
"Alright, alright, Reddy, hold on," and she dodged his flying fingers to tuck in a hankerchief to catch the food that he would inevitably spill on himself.
"You want to look good for your visitor today, don't you?"
Red couldn't reply. He could only swing his hands around the wafting prefume of the food. His mother brought it to his face and he began to grasp the good and stuff it into his mouth, chewing with thell athose tensed muslces, sucking in air through that perfect as he ate. Pieces of yellow egg landed on the hankerchief, chips of burnt bacon clicked on the wood floor of their little house.
When the plat was almost cleaned off completely a car drove up the dusty path kicking pebbles and dirt up from its tires. The olive sedan parked in front of hte porch. A young, attractive woman with dirty blond hair and turqoise blue eyes exited the car and closed the door and pressed a black button on her key chain so the car beeped. She carried a notebook and pen in her hand as she approached the porch.
"Miss Melly?" Red's mother asked the young woman.
"Hi Mrs. Gretchen, how are you today?"
"Fine, thank you."
Melly walked up the steps of the porch and Red's mother walked to her, seemingly trying to keep her away from her son. They stood several feet away from Red, but Melly looked over Red's mother's shoulder and addressed Red anyway.
"I'm very excited to talk to you today, Red," she walked forward as she spoke and continued to Red's mother, "You know it's so rare to find a case like Red's--he could really help us answer a lot of questions about how much humans rely on smell and pheromonal--"
Red's mother looked away from Melly with a confused face. The scientist caught herself in her scientific excitement and decided to stop talking. They both looked down at Red, who was sitting in his chair. When the two of them were closer to Red his hands began waving through the air. Innocuously at first, but their movements became more desparate and almost violent as they got nearer to him. By the time Melly and his mother were standing in conversation range his hands were flying like they were swatting dangerous bugs.
Then one of the hands found Melly's forearm and squeezed it and pulled the young woman toward Red, who used her weight to help lift himself to a standing position. Another hand found her other arm and Red wrapped himself around Melly and hugged her forcibly.
"Red, no!" his mother yelled.
But he didn't stop, he stoof up, the dirty and egg-ridden hankerchief fell to the porch floor and he brought the young scientist to his face and he pressed his nose into her neck with strong lunges, sniffing her everywhere he could and Melly felt an awkward protrusion protruding from the middle of the man who could only smell and she kicked the erection and the hands released her and she pulled herself away. Then she took a breath, leaning on a post of their porch, looked at Red's mother, and opened her notebook to make a note of something.

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