The Olfactory Journals of Captain Morel

Fiction

October 12, 1805 The engines are humming in the valley. General Murat insists that the 'Euphoria Mist' will break the Austrian line without a single shot fired. It is a strange sensation, watching a thousand men march into a cloud of synthetic jasmine and crushed musk, only to see them drop their muskets and embrace one another in a state of chemical delirium. I keep my handkerchief soaked in a heavy blend of sandalwood and clove; it is the only thing that keeps the engine's influence from seeping into my own mind. The contrast is jarring: the scent of a Parisian ballroom drifting over a muddy field of confused, smiling soldiers. November 4, 1805 My appetite has vanished. The camp smells of nothing but the 'Dread-Scent' we deployed during the retreat at the river. It was a pungent, acidic odor, reminiscent of rotting fish and old copper. It worked too well. The enemy panicked, but the residue clings to everything: the tents, the uniforms, the very skin of my hands. I spent an hour scrubbing my wrists with lye this morning, yet the ghost of that terror remains. I find myself longing for the simple, honest smell of woodsmoke or horse manure. Everything now is processed, engineered, and artificial. November 28, 1805 I can no longer smell the wine. I held a glass of Burgundy to my nose today, and it was as if I were inhaling steam from a pot of plain water. The surgeon calls it 'olfactory fatigue,' a saturation of the nerves caused by prolonged exposure to the engines. He tells me it will pass, but I feel a void opening inside me. To lose one's sense of smell is to lose the map of one's life. I tried to smell the letter from Claire, the one she pressed a dried violet into, but there was nothing. Just the scent of old paper and the faint, metallic tang of the camp's ventilation pipes. December 15, 1805 We are entrenched in the frost. The air is thin and cold, which should make the scents sharper, yet the world remains muted. I am a ghost inhabiting a colorless, odorless wasteland. The men are nervous. They speak of the British 'Ozone-Scent,' a weapon that supposedly strips the mind of all loyalty and replaces it with a cold, crystalline panic. I cannot smell it, which is the true horror. I am blind to the wind. December 17, 1805 It happened an hour ago. I didn't smell it with my nose; I felt it in the back of my throat. A sharp, electric prickle. It is the scent of a lightning strike in a slaughterhouse: ozone and scorched iron. The men began to scream before the British regulars even appeared over the ridge. I stood there, staring at my men as they broke ranks, smelling absolutely nothing, while the air around me shimmered with the invisible, metallic weight of our defeat.