Anosmia for the Present Tense
In a city numbed by digital augmentation, a perfumer who crafts scents to unlock memories is faced with an impossible request: create a fragrance that can make someone forget. The commission forces him to confront the ghost in his own past.
INT. ATELIER - DAY
SOUND of a silent, humming air purifier
A sanctuary of scent. Walls lined with amber glass bottles, each meticulously labeled. Soft light glows from filament bulbs, illuminating delicate beakers and brass instruments. This is a laboratory that feels more like an alchemist's study.
EVAN (30s), meticulous and focused, holds a glass pipette with a surgeon's steadiness. He wears a simple, dark artisan's apron.
Opposite him sits CLIENT 812 (30s). She is perfectly still, her posture rigid. Her clothes are a severe, monochromatic grey. A thin, silvery line is etched along her right temple, the only visible sign of her emotion-dampening cybernetics. She is a vacuum in this sensory-rich room.
CLOSE ON Evan's hand as he adds a single, viscous drop of oil to a beaker. The liquid swirls.
EVAN
> Describe it again.
CLIENT 812
> (modulated, neutral)
> It's not a memory of a place. It is the memory. The lynchpin. When the sensory recall cascade begins, it always starts with the smell. Ozone, like a failing power conduit. And underneath, the smell of sugar caramelizing. Burning.
Evan doesn't look at her. He carefully places the pipette back in its rack.
EVAN
> And you want me to create a perfume that smells of something else? To cover it?
CLIENT 812
> No. I want you to create an absence. An antagonist scent. A molecule that will find the neural receptors associated with that specific memory and block them. I want to smell ozone and burning sugar and register nothing. I want anosmia for a single moment in my past.
Evan finally looks up, his focus broken. He studies the impassive mask of her face.
EVAN
> That isn't what I do. My work is about reclamation. Not erasure.
CLIENT 812
> (no inflection)
> Your work is about control. You give people control over their past. I am asking for the same thing. The fee is not a concern.
Ozone and burnt sugar. The combination sparks something in Evan's mind—a faint, unsettling flicker. A ghost of a memory. He pushes it away. An echo of her trauma. Nothing more.
EVAN
> To even begin, I would need a sample. Something from the event. Something that still carries the ghost of the scent.
CLIENT 812
> Impossible. The site was sterilized decades ago.
Evan leans forward, his voice dropping, becoming more intense.
EVAN
> Then the memory itself. You have it archived, I assume. The raw sensory data from before your damper was installed. I can't work with a description. I need the data. I need to know the exact parts-per-million of pyrazine from the sugar, the specific isotopic signature of the ozone.
For the first time, a micro-expression—a twitch of uncertainty—crosses her face before the implant suppresses it.
CLIENT 812
> This is a violation of my privacy constructs.
EVAN
> This is the price of forgetting.
A long silence hangs in the air, thick with unspoken weight.
CLOSE ON the silver line on her temple. A tiny blue LED blinks rapidly, then goes steady. She is consulting. Weighing the risk.
CLIENT 812
> The data will be transferred to your private server. It is encrypted with a key that will expire in twenty-four hours. If you attempt to copy it, it will erase itself. Do we have an agreement?
EVAN
> We have an agreement.
INT. ATELIER - NIGHT
The atelier is dark, save for the cool glow of a large monitor. Evan sits alone, the room around him reduced to shadows.
ON THE MONITOR: A data transfer completes. A single, encrypted file sits in his secure inbox. A 24-HOUR TIMER begins a countdown.
Evan clicks open the file, bypassing video and audio logs. He isolates the spectrographic analysis.
Code scrolls down the screen. He initiates a render.
The data resolves into a 3D MOLECULAR MODEL. A twisting lattice of atoms spins slowly in the darkness. He isolates the structures.
OZONE (O3) glows blue.
PYRAZINES and FURANONES (caramelized sucrose) glow amber.
He manipulates the model, turning it, looking for anomalies. And then he sees it. Woven through the other compounds...
A third, unexpected structure. He isolates it.
The molecule glows green. The label appears: PINENE.
The scent of pine.
Ozone, burnt sugar, and pine.
Evan's breath catches. His carefully controlled composure shatters.
A series of FLASH CUTS, sensory and visceral:
- The rough, sticky needles of a CHRISTMAS TREE.
- The POP and FIZZ of old, faulty string lights. A shower of sparks.
- The overwhelming, sweet smell of a CAKE just starting to burn in an oven.
- ORANGE LIGHT flickering, growing brighter, consuming the room.
BACK TO SCENE.
Evan stares at the screen, his face pale. His own reflection is a ghost against the spinning molecules. This isn't an echo.
His hands tremble as he navigates to the file's metadata.
CLOSE ON THE SCREEN as the information appears:
`DATE: 12.24.2018`
`LOCATION: 48.8584° N, 2.2945° E`
The date and location of his childhood home. The night of the fire.
ANGLE ON EVAN, his eyes wide with horror. He is staring at the screen, but he is seeing a memory he thought was long buried. It isn't her trauma.
It's theirs.
SOUND of a silent, humming air purifier
A sanctuary of scent. Walls lined with amber glass bottles, each meticulously labeled. Soft light glows from filament bulbs, illuminating delicate beakers and brass instruments. This is a laboratory that feels more like an alchemist's study.
EVAN (30s), meticulous and focused, holds a glass pipette with a surgeon's steadiness. He wears a simple, dark artisan's apron.
Opposite him sits CLIENT 812 (30s). She is perfectly still, her posture rigid. Her clothes are a severe, monochromatic grey. A thin, silvery line is etched along her right temple, the only visible sign of her emotion-dampening cybernetics. She is a vacuum in this sensory-rich room.
CLOSE ON Evan's hand as he adds a single, viscous drop of oil to a beaker. The liquid swirls.
EVAN
> Describe it again.
CLIENT 812
> (modulated, neutral)
> It's not a memory of a place. It is the memory. The lynchpin. When the sensory recall cascade begins, it always starts with the smell. Ozone, like a failing power conduit. And underneath, the smell of sugar caramelizing. Burning.
Evan doesn't look at her. He carefully places the pipette back in its rack.
EVAN
> And you want me to create a perfume that smells of something else? To cover it?
CLIENT 812
> No. I want you to create an absence. An antagonist scent. A molecule that will find the neural receptors associated with that specific memory and block them. I want to smell ozone and burning sugar and register nothing. I want anosmia for a single moment in my past.
Evan finally looks up, his focus broken. He studies the impassive mask of her face.
EVAN
> That isn't what I do. My work is about reclamation. Not erasure.
CLIENT 812
> (no inflection)
> Your work is about control. You give people control over their past. I am asking for the same thing. The fee is not a concern.
Ozone and burnt sugar. The combination sparks something in Evan's mind—a faint, unsettling flicker. A ghost of a memory. He pushes it away. An echo of her trauma. Nothing more.
EVAN
> To even begin, I would need a sample. Something from the event. Something that still carries the ghost of the scent.
CLIENT 812
> Impossible. The site was sterilized decades ago.
Evan leans forward, his voice dropping, becoming more intense.
EVAN
> Then the memory itself. You have it archived, I assume. The raw sensory data from before your damper was installed. I can't work with a description. I need the data. I need to know the exact parts-per-million of pyrazine from the sugar, the specific isotopic signature of the ozone.
For the first time, a micro-expression—a twitch of uncertainty—crosses her face before the implant suppresses it.
CLIENT 812
> This is a violation of my privacy constructs.
EVAN
> This is the price of forgetting.
A long silence hangs in the air, thick with unspoken weight.
CLOSE ON the silver line on her temple. A tiny blue LED blinks rapidly, then goes steady. She is consulting. Weighing the risk.
CLIENT 812
> The data will be transferred to your private server. It is encrypted with a key that will expire in twenty-four hours. If you attempt to copy it, it will erase itself. Do we have an agreement?
EVAN
> We have an agreement.
INT. ATELIER - NIGHT
The atelier is dark, save for the cool glow of a large monitor. Evan sits alone, the room around him reduced to shadows.
ON THE MONITOR: A data transfer completes. A single, encrypted file sits in his secure inbox. A 24-HOUR TIMER begins a countdown.
Evan clicks open the file, bypassing video and audio logs. He isolates the spectrographic analysis.
Code scrolls down the screen. He initiates a render.
The data resolves into a 3D MOLECULAR MODEL. A twisting lattice of atoms spins slowly in the darkness. He isolates the structures.
OZONE (O3) glows blue.
PYRAZINES and FURANONES (caramelized sucrose) glow amber.
He manipulates the model, turning it, looking for anomalies. And then he sees it. Woven through the other compounds...
A third, unexpected structure. He isolates it.
The molecule glows green. The label appears: PINENE.
The scent of pine.
Ozone, burnt sugar, and pine.
Evan's breath catches. His carefully controlled composure shatters.
A series of FLASH CUTS, sensory and visceral:
- The rough, sticky needles of a CHRISTMAS TREE.
- The POP and FIZZ of old, faulty string lights. A shower of sparks.
- The overwhelming, sweet smell of a CAKE just starting to burn in an oven.
- ORANGE LIGHT flickering, growing brighter, consuming the room.
BACK TO SCENE.
Evan stares at the screen, his face pale. His own reflection is a ghost against the spinning molecules. This isn't an echo.
His hands tremble as he navigates to the file's metadata.
CLOSE ON THE SCREEN as the information appears:
`DATE: 12.24.2018`
`LOCATION: 48.8584° N, 2.2945° E`
The date and location of his childhood home. The night of the fire.
ANGLE ON EVAN, his eyes wide with horror. He is staring at the screen, but he is seeing a memory he thought was long buried. It isn't her trauma.
It's theirs.