Perfume. I lay there in the sludge and rotting sewage of Paris, where I had come to lie everynight, my new home, with nowhere else to go.
PERFUME ESSAY
I lay there in the sludge and rotting sewage of Paris, where I had come to lie everynight, my new home, with nowhere else to go. Chilling, pain ridden screams and howls arose from behind the concrete walls of the prison waking me from my deep slumber I was greeted by the smell of cold, hard steel and the irrepressible stench of rotting flesh and blood from the lucky dead. There was a constant rattling of chains and the smell of stale sweat and week’s or months of rank urine. My incredible sense of smell could pick out anything and everything but it was useless now. As I drearily gazed around I noticed a human shape move ever so slightly in the shadows as I looked closer however I noticed the skin on his face was raw and scolded probably from some horrific torture; then he was gone. It did not bother me in the slightest the most feared men in Paris were kept here behind the solid iron gate it was also here that they were reduced to blubbering fools. Arising from the ground I set about gathering the essentials of the day (food and water) this had become my main aim in life now that I had lost everything.
My first stop would be the fish market where I would feed on the festering scraps and thrown out fish guts that even the starving flee ridden rats had rejected. On my way down the road to the market I had to pass the Maison des Invalids and as I approached I was greeted by a malodour of urine, congealed blood and the sweat of the doctor’s next unfortunate patient. I moved on not wishing to know anymore. A little up the road and on the opposite side was le Place de Bastille where hundreds of soldiers were trained day after day with the atrocious odour of their accumulated sweat drifting over the walls and into my nose. However the tanned leather of the horse’s saddles decreased the intensity of the sweat. Looking around me as I left the Place de Bastille behind me all I could see was a couple of old women chattering and gossiping outside one of the old, crumbling buildings. Then at a quick glance I noticed him again, the man with the scolded face. Was he following me? I kept my head down and kept walking all the way to the fish market thankfully not seeing him again.
