I didn’t recall catching the scent in the first place, but it plunged me back as soon as it wafted

my way the second time. The olfactic epithelium rarely lies to you, at least in terms of chemical
compound, but more importantly context. By which I meant to say that somehow the mechanism
managed to make sulfur smell desirable. And I hadn’t even been thinking about the bastard.

I drained my bourbon and ordered two more from a higher shelf than I’d been purchasing from.

“Wasn’t sure you’d show,” I said, purposely not giving the courtesy of eye contact. The meeting
wasn’t prearranged. Just expected.

“That’s not the truth though, is it?” The question, or voice, or both, were irresistible.

I dared the glance and his eyes spiked alight with dawnfire, the birth of each day’s possibility.

“No.”

“Truth is that you were worried I wouldn’t show.” The bartender slid us our drinks, and my
companion dabbed his ring finger in at the edge of the glass. The amber liquid pulsed and the
cubes melted down a layer.

“I started thinking that you were…”

“Something with which you’d needlessly tortured yourself. The breaks through the fabric had
been imagined.”

He pulled a handkerchief out before the tear had formed and handed it to me like an old friend.
He smiled like hearth and home I’d never known. He took a drink and seemed to savor it more
than it deserved. He looked the way I wanted to when I didn’t think anyone was looking at me.

“I was here for you, you know,” he said, doffing his fine cap and smoothing out an impossible
mane. The eyes flashed again, and I could see a young woman reflected in their high-definition
perfection. “I looked out for you when that,” - the shards of my car accident - “...that,” - the
refracted multi-dimensional smell of her - “...and that happened.”

I won’t recount the content of the last reminder. He’ll do it behind my back anyway.

“What do you need from me?” Someone lit a cigarette following my question, a vice that had
become verboten in the bars of that nameless city. No one objected. Through a halo of smoke
he replied:

“You need to kill yourself.”

“What’s the catch,” I asked, counting myself clever.

“You won’t die,” he answered. Since that night, I’ve never again considered myself clever.