In the Scent of a Slow Morning. | Shirokuma Literature Club

An unfamiliar scent

Slowly, I tried to take a deep breath.

Morning air is usually clear. At least, that's how it's supposed to be. Light streams in through the gap in the curtains, birds chirp, and a new day is about to begin. On such a refreshing morning, I took a deep breath while still in bed.

It stank.

It was an indescribable smell. It wasn't quite a stench, but it was definitely there. The fact that I couldn't identify the source made it all the more unsettling. In any case, something far removed from the clear morning air was drifting through the room.

I jumped out of bed.

I opened the window. The air outside was normal. I looked over the neighborhood, but it was just a typical, quiet morning residential street. A cat was walking leisurely. The cat didn't seem to have anything to do with it.

Just in case, I went outside and walked around the house. Still in my pajamas. I ran into a neighbor. I greeted them. It was embarrassing. But there was no source of the smell.

I returned inside.

This time, I searched the room. I checked the trash can. Nothing wrong. I opened the closet. A coat I'd left in there since last year appeared, but the smell was different. I opened the fridge. There was an expired yogurt, but it didn't seem related to this incident. I threw it away while I was at it.

The washroom, the toilet, the bathroom. Everything was normal.

I was at a loss. Eighteen minutes had passed without finding the source of the smell. There I was, sniffing around my house in my pajamas—a morning sight I wouldn't want anyone to see. Though I'd already been seen.

I was tired. I'll just go back to sleep.

I collapsed onto the bed. I buried my face in the pillow.

It stank.

This was it. It was definitely this. The thing that had been drifting around was concentrated right here. But as for what kind of smell it was, I couldn't quite put it into words. If I had to say, it was... the smell of a strange middle-aged man, I suppose.

I lifted the pillow and stared at it intently. The pillow was just a pillow. The cover... when did I last change it? Well, that aside, I felt like I had smelled this scent somewhere before. As I opened the drawers of my memory, it came out quite quickly.

It's my old man.

It's the smell of the sofa at my parents' house. That smell that would be on my face when I woke up after taking a nap during a visit home. The one I'd always thought of as "Dad's smell" since I was little.

I quietly put the pillow down.

I see.
So this was what smelled.
The culprit is the pillow, and the reason the pillow smelled is me.
It's because I've been pressing my face into it every night.
And the fact that the smell is the same as my old man's means, in other words, that I've reached that age too.

Outside the window, that cat from earlier was still walking leisurely.
Cats are nice, I thought.
Cats don't use pillows.

I took a slow, deep breath, and this time, it was for real.
The morning air coming in through the window was perfectly clear.

I didn't know about the deadline yesterday and it ticked me off, so I wrote this right away.