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.
# Anosmia for the Present Tense
**Format:** Short Film / Anthology Episode | **Est. Length:** 10-12 minutes
## Logline
In a near-future where scent can be bottled, a meticulous scent artist who helps clients reclaim lost memories is hired by a cybernetically-dampened woman to erase a traumatic one, only to discover the memory she wants to forget is his own.
## Themes
* **Memory vs. Identity:** The exploration of whether our identities are defined by our experiences, and what is lost when we choose to erase the painful parts of our past.
* **Technology and Emotional Suppression:** The tension between using technology to control and numb human emotion versus the organic, uncontrollable power of sensory memory.
* **Reclamation vs. Erasure:** The central philosophical conflict of whether healing comes from confronting and integrating trauma or by surgically removing it from one's consciousness.
* **Shared Trauma:** The unexpected and profound connection that can exist between strangers, forged in a single, devastating moment unknown to them both.
## Stakes
The protagonist risks shattering his own carefully constructed emotional reality by confronting a repressed childhood trauma he didn't know he shared with his client.
## Synopsis
EVAN is a master of his craft, a "perfumer of the soul" who reconstructs scents to help clients access and reclaim their most cherished memories. His world of organic chemistry and deep empathy is disrupted by the arrival of CLIENT 812, a woman whose emotions are suppressed by a visible cybernetic implant. She feels like a void in his sensory-rich atelier.
Her request is a paradox: she doesn't want to remember; she wants to forget. She describes the lynchpin memory of her trauma—the smell of ozone and burning sugar—and asks Evan to create an "antagonist scent," a molecule designed to find the specific neural receptors for that memory and block them permanently. She wants to induce a targeted anosmia for a single moment in her past.
Evan initially refuses, arguing his work is about reclamation, not erasure. Client 812 coldly corrects him, stating his work is about giving people control over their past, which is all she is asking for. The strange combination of scents—sterile ozone and acrid burnt sugar—stirs a faint, unsettling familiarity in Evan, which he dismisses as an echo of her potent memory.
He agrees to take the commission on one condition: he needs the raw sensory data of the memory itself, as a mere description is not enough to isolate the precise molecular compounds. This demand forces a flicker of uncertainty across the client's neutral facade; giving him the data is an act of supreme vulnerability. After consulting her internal AI, she agrees, transferring the encrypted file with a 24-hour self-destruct key.
Alone in his lab, Evan analyzes the spectrographic data, rendering it as a 3D molecular model. He sees the expected structures for ozone and caramelized sucrose, but also a third, unexpected compound: pinene, the distinct molecule for the scent of pine.
The combination—ozone, burnt sugar, and pine—hits him with the force of a physical blow. It unlocks a deeply repressed memory of his own: a childhood Christmas, the smell of the pine tree, the pop of faulty lights shorting out, and the smell of a cake burning as a fire engulfed his home. Shaken, he checks the date and location stamp on the client's data file. It confirms his terror. This isn't an echo or a resonance. It's his memory.
## Character Breakdown
* **EVAN (30s):** A meticulous, empathetic, and controlled scent artist. He views his work as a form of therapy, a sacred practice of connecting people to their past. He is a modern alchemist, living in a world of deep feeling and sensory input, which he carefully curates for his clients.
* **Psychological Arc:** Evan begins as a confident master of his domain, a detached facilitator of others' emotional journeys, believing he is in complete control. He ends in a state of profound shock and vulnerability, his professional and personal walls shattered by the realization that he is inextricably linked to the very trauma he was hired to erase. His journey is from a position of perceived power and empathy to one of raw, personal horror and shared victimhood.
* **CLIENT 812 (30s):** Precise, cold, and seemingly emotionless due to her cybernetic implant. She operates with a machinelike logic, viewing her traumatic memory as a corrupt piece of code that needs to be deleted. Beneath the technology, she is driven by a desperate need to escape a pain so profound she has chosen to surgically mute her entire emotional spectrum to cope with it.
## Scene Beats
1. **THE PARADOXICAL REQUEST:** In his warm, organic atelier, Evan meets Client 812, a stark, cybernetically-dampened figure. She makes her impossible request: create a scent that will make her forget another.
2. **THE NEGOTIATION:** Evan pushes back, framing his work as reclamation. She reframes it as control. The scent combination she describes—ozone and burnt sugar—triggers a disquieting flicker of memory in Evan, which he suppresses.
3. **THE PRICE OF FORGETTING:** Evan demands the raw sensory data of the memory. We see the first crack in Client 812's composure as she weighs the profound violation of privacy against the promise of relief.
4. **THE TRANSFER:** The deal is struck. The encrypted data packet arrives on Evan's secure server. A clock is now ticking.
5. **THE ANALYSIS:** Alone, Evan renders the scent data into a 3D molecular model. He isolates the known compounds but discovers a third, unexpected element: pinene.
6. **THE REVELATION:** The full combination—ozone, burnt sugar, pine—unlocks Evan's own repressed trauma: a catastrophic house fire from his childhood at Christmas. The detached artist is suddenly plunged into his own past.
7. **THE CONFIRMATION:** In a state of rising panic, Evan checks the metadata of the client's file. The date and location match his own tragedy. He stares at the screen, his reflection a ghost against the molecules of their shared trauma.
## Visual Style & Tone
The film will employ a high-contrast aesthetic. Evan's atelier is warm and intimate, filled with amber liquids, glowing filaments, and soft, focused light—an organic sanctuary. The world outside, and Client 812 herself, are presented in cool, sterile palettes of chrome, grey, and blue. The visual language will rely on extreme close-ups: a drop of oil falling into a beaker, the rapid blink of an LED on the client's temple, the spinning lattice of a 3D molecular model.
The tone is cerebral, melancholic, and psychologically tense. It builds a quiet, contemplative mood that is shattered by the final, horrifying revelation. **Tonal comparisons:** Aligns with the speculative, character-driven sci-fi of *Black Mirror* (specifically "The Entire History of You"), the somber, philosophical atmosphere of *Arrival*, and the memory-erasure themes of *Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind*.
**Format:** Short Film / Anthology Episode | **Est. Length:** 10-12 minutes
## Logline
In a near-future where scent can be bottled, a meticulous scent artist who helps clients reclaim lost memories is hired by a cybernetically-dampened woman to erase a traumatic one, only to discover the memory she wants to forget is his own.
## Themes
* **Memory vs. Identity:** The exploration of whether our identities are defined by our experiences, and what is lost when we choose to erase the painful parts of our past.
* **Technology and Emotional Suppression:** The tension between using technology to control and numb human emotion versus the organic, uncontrollable power of sensory memory.
* **Reclamation vs. Erasure:** The central philosophical conflict of whether healing comes from confronting and integrating trauma or by surgically removing it from one's consciousness.
* **Shared Trauma:** The unexpected and profound connection that can exist between strangers, forged in a single, devastating moment unknown to them both.
## Stakes
The protagonist risks shattering his own carefully constructed emotional reality by confronting a repressed childhood trauma he didn't know he shared with his client.
## Synopsis
EVAN is a master of his craft, a "perfumer of the soul" who reconstructs scents to help clients access and reclaim their most cherished memories. His world of organic chemistry and deep empathy is disrupted by the arrival of CLIENT 812, a woman whose emotions are suppressed by a visible cybernetic implant. She feels like a void in his sensory-rich atelier.
Her request is a paradox: she doesn't want to remember; she wants to forget. She describes the lynchpin memory of her trauma—the smell of ozone and burning sugar—and asks Evan to create an "antagonist scent," a molecule designed to find the specific neural receptors for that memory and block them permanently. She wants to induce a targeted anosmia for a single moment in her past.
Evan initially refuses, arguing his work is about reclamation, not erasure. Client 812 coldly corrects him, stating his work is about giving people control over their past, which is all she is asking for. The strange combination of scents—sterile ozone and acrid burnt sugar—stirs a faint, unsettling familiarity in Evan, which he dismisses as an echo of her potent memory.
He agrees to take the commission on one condition: he needs the raw sensory data of the memory itself, as a mere description is not enough to isolate the precise molecular compounds. This demand forces a flicker of uncertainty across the client's neutral facade; giving him the data is an act of supreme vulnerability. After consulting her internal AI, she agrees, transferring the encrypted file with a 24-hour self-destruct key.
Alone in his lab, Evan analyzes the spectrographic data, rendering it as a 3D molecular model. He sees the expected structures for ozone and caramelized sucrose, but also a third, unexpected compound: pinene, the distinct molecule for the scent of pine.
The combination—ozone, burnt sugar, and pine—hits him with the force of a physical blow. It unlocks a deeply repressed memory of his own: a childhood Christmas, the smell of the pine tree, the pop of faulty lights shorting out, and the smell of a cake burning as a fire engulfed his home. Shaken, he checks the date and location stamp on the client's data file. It confirms his terror. This isn't an echo or a resonance. It's his memory.
## Character Breakdown
* **EVAN (30s):** A meticulous, empathetic, and controlled scent artist. He views his work as a form of therapy, a sacred practice of connecting people to their past. He is a modern alchemist, living in a world of deep feeling and sensory input, which he carefully curates for his clients.
* **Psychological Arc:** Evan begins as a confident master of his domain, a detached facilitator of others' emotional journeys, believing he is in complete control. He ends in a state of profound shock and vulnerability, his professional and personal walls shattered by the realization that he is inextricably linked to the very trauma he was hired to erase. His journey is from a position of perceived power and empathy to one of raw, personal horror and shared victimhood.
* **CLIENT 812 (30s):** Precise, cold, and seemingly emotionless due to her cybernetic implant. She operates with a machinelike logic, viewing her traumatic memory as a corrupt piece of code that needs to be deleted. Beneath the technology, she is driven by a desperate need to escape a pain so profound she has chosen to surgically mute her entire emotional spectrum to cope with it.
## Scene Beats
1. **THE PARADOXICAL REQUEST:** In his warm, organic atelier, Evan meets Client 812, a stark, cybernetically-dampened figure. She makes her impossible request: create a scent that will make her forget another.
2. **THE NEGOTIATION:** Evan pushes back, framing his work as reclamation. She reframes it as control. The scent combination she describes—ozone and burnt sugar—triggers a disquieting flicker of memory in Evan, which he suppresses.
3. **THE PRICE OF FORGETTING:** Evan demands the raw sensory data of the memory. We see the first crack in Client 812's composure as she weighs the profound violation of privacy against the promise of relief.
4. **THE TRANSFER:** The deal is struck. The encrypted data packet arrives on Evan's secure server. A clock is now ticking.
5. **THE ANALYSIS:** Alone, Evan renders the scent data into a 3D molecular model. He isolates the known compounds but discovers a third, unexpected element: pinene.
6. **THE REVELATION:** The full combination—ozone, burnt sugar, pine—unlocks Evan's own repressed trauma: a catastrophic house fire from his childhood at Christmas. The detached artist is suddenly plunged into his own past.
7. **THE CONFIRMATION:** In a state of rising panic, Evan checks the metadata of the client's file. The date and location match his own tragedy. He stares at the screen, his reflection a ghost against the molecules of their shared trauma.
## Visual Style & Tone
The film will employ a high-contrast aesthetic. Evan's atelier is warm and intimate, filled with amber liquids, glowing filaments, and soft, focused light—an organic sanctuary. The world outside, and Client 812 herself, are presented in cool, sterile palettes of chrome, grey, and blue. The visual language will rely on extreme close-ups: a drop of oil falling into a beaker, the rapid blink of an LED on the client's temple, the spinning lattice of a 3D molecular model.
The tone is cerebral, melancholic, and psychologically tense. It builds a quiet, contemplative mood that is shattered by the final, horrifying revelation. **Tonal comparisons:** Aligns with the speculative, character-driven sci-fi of *Black Mirror* (specifically "The Entire History of You"), the somber, philosophical atmosphere of *Arrival*, and the memory-erasure themes of *Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind*.