The Taste Of A Smell
Originally published in in the MA Anthology (2026)
You look it up. It can’t kill you. You knew this already, but there is still that feeling in your gut, like you’ve swallowed a melon. And you haven’t shit in a week.
You don’t remember when it started, a couple of months ago at least. But you do remember the unthinking way you held it between thumb and forefinger, moulding and shaping it with soft presses. The marbled colours and fingerprints showing in the satin-matte of it. How, without thinking, you had placed it into your mouth, bitten down. Felt the cleaving resistance, tasted a tacky dryness at odds with the oily film coating your mouth. It pressed between your teeth, extruded against the inside of your lips and cheeks. And then it was gone. The smell of it on your fingers, so familiar it was as if it had always been there, yet if you’d been asked about it a moment before, you would have struggled to recollect.
You mould the piece in your pocket. You’ve taken to wrapping it in clingfilm, making it easier to carry around and less conspicuous. You press it into a cube, as always. Equal pressure on six sides. The satisfaction of symmetry. You’ll have to wait for this piece, until you’re alone. No one would notice or think anything of you unwrapping and eating something so small. But you would still rather make sure no one saw.
That feeling in your gut really is uncomfortable. You stopped wearing a belt. Sitting upright, with the waistband of your trousers pressing on your abdomen, has become intolerable. You slip your hand below your desk and flick the two buttons open to relieve the pressure. It feels better but does not alleviate it entirely. The weight is coming from within.
It was a few days before you did it again. This time without the foreplay of examination and hesitation. Your hand found it, moulded it to the cube and then placed it into your mouth. One long bite down to feel that slick powdery-ness, stirred by your tongue, swallowed.