A cloudy Sunday afternoon. The smell of cigarette butts lingering in the balcony of my place. Usual weekend banter of the boys. Girls as well. A fun-filled, exciting weekend on the outside, an intense turmoil within. Distractions galore, I force myself into the moment. Sensory pleasure and whatnot. Beer tops the experience. Reminiscent chatter about varsity days, random outings, and everything under the expanse of the pre-pandemic scheme of things. What a sweet afternoon, I think to myself!
The crowd goes back in the house and so do I.
“It’s self-care time!”
I try to look at myself. What an irony!
The next thing I know, the girls are applying face masks to the boys’ faces.
I participate. With a straight face. And a mask. There.
A soft brush that would have otherwise been hard if it were to paint something is taken out.
Of course, it is the boys’ faces. Brushes don’t stand a chance of being categorized, do they?
After an arduous forty minutes or so, everyone’s faces (read boys’, mind you) turn pinkish-red. The ladies have a good laugh. The kind of laughter that reeks of playful appreciation. These things warm your heart, really.
I try to involuntarily move my facial muscles and suddenly feel a contraction. I scoff and scorn like an old man that’s looking for his spectacles in another galaxy, only to find them hanging low on his buttoned shirt.
The mask is gotten rid of, finally and we are told to put on a load of other applications on the face post the facemask removal.
Fast forward to the living room, I am dressed in decent black jeans and a blue t-shirt, ready to pay a visit to my CEO’s place.
Putting on my sandals, I reach my back pocket to pull out my face mask. Ugh, the other one. The one which you were told to put on one fine morning, some 700 days back on national television. Rest is history. Maybe even the present.
I step out. I am walking towards the elevator. Remember I have my mask on. Fuck it, this is no Future reference. Rather a past one.
I am weak in an instant. In a jiffy. As if someone has slashed through my entire being in half with a Samurai sword. I continue walking towards the elevator, lifeless and formless. A day full of ironies, innit?
Something’s on charge. It’s my olfactory bulb I believe. A strong smell is sensed by me as I am in the elevator. An instant trigger. A level down. The automatic doors of the elevator bust open. As I am standing facing myself in the mirror, they begin to close back in. I stretch my hand out and stop them from closing. I drag myself out.
Unwilling to process the whiff, I keep walking. Towards my bike. That’s it. That’s where it begins. For the next one hour, I am detached. Detached from my environment. I recollect eating chicken curry at my boss’ place and chatting with the team for about thirty minutes.
It’s the reek of the skincare done an hour ago. The smell of the face mask transfused with the serum and moisturizer. The exact same fragrance reminds me of a fond memory...
One that I dearly cherish. The smell of ma chérie…
