It was a blistering day. The day would be hotter if it weren’t for the smog in the air softening the harsh desert sun. A cloud of ashes and smoke had seeped in and settled like a blanket over Las Cruces since the border clashes began. And with the smoke came the smell. People called it El Olor. A vaguely fetid odor that permeated everything. People had learned to live with it, shoved it to the back of their minds. …
Tag: War
“Boots” * Fiction * DC Diamondopolous
The same sun scorched downtown Los Angeles that had seared the Iraq desert. Army Private First Class Samantha Cummings stood at attention holding a stack of boxes, her unwashed black hair slicked back in a ponytail and knotted military style. She stared out from Roberts Shoe Store onto Broadway, transfixed by a homeless man with hair and scraggly beard the color of ripe tomatoes. She’d only seen that hair color once before, on Staff Sergeant Daniel O’Conner. The man pushed …
Three Olfaction Poems by Gerard Sarnat MD
Can You Imagine What a Battlefield Smells Like? Helen’s nascent protuberance & morningsickness mousily besought Uncle to shimmythrough his packed furnace room clutterto sniff for the clue why she wanted to puke. Obliging her face that could launch a thousand ships,I tripped on barbells turning over a discarded radiatorwhich held sweaty exercise gear + a moldy jock —until one sock got caught in some mystery muck. Both light bulbs burned out, my left sock limpedback into the civilization of my …