A Wind No One Lived Through

(Sent.)

2026.10.25

Some words, once they’re broken up, rearranged, pressed together or brought to an end, give off a faint smell. Thin, elusive, a little off, unfamiliar.

It’s a description of someone, one day, heading toward a place that seems real. I can see the river rushing. I can hear water that isn’t there. How would you put that sound? A splash and a gurgle? Or a low, rolling roar?

The weather doesn’t look good. I sniff. The smell of rain, the smell of earth. Or, to be exact: petrichor, geosmin. Two words that somehow hold a smell all of us remember.

And how does it feel? Wind rising, clouds piling up, trees gone wild, throwing punches at enemies no one can see. Definitely not a good time for anyone to be out walking.

Or maybe I’m describing all this from behind a window? I’m not sure. The words start to hallucinate. A wind no one lived through. A river no one heard. A smell drifting up from memory, or from somewhere deeper. A lot of the time, I thought I was there.