Whiff

Just now I was cleaning off my incredibly filthy balcony — scraping up the moldy, dripping remains of the pumpkins, repotting the mum I bought, cleaning up dirt I flung everywhere while repotting, scraping the dead roots out of all the other pots, etc. — and I got a whiff of a smell that nearly knocked me down.

It was of my Nana’s trailer, her last one — the blue one — that, even when it was new, smelled of ancient nicotine pressure cooked into every absorbent surface, cheaply made plastic trailer doorknobs and ceiling tiles, dusty mauve carpet so thin paths were worn from room to room, and yellowing linoleum pock-marked with cigarette burns…