Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The (Pungent) Cloud of Unknowing

I cannot begin to understand the chemistry that gave rise to it, but a bottle whose label has faded, and which thus I cannot look up, smells of bubblegum, mint, and soap. I haven't used anything that smells minty or soapy on its own, and I most definitely do not own anything possessing a bubblegum fragrance...

I don't know. I can't repair it; it's beyond redemption. And I can't even use it to put in the oil soap for the floors, because while the mint might be refreshing (before it started to drive me mad), it's the most muted part. I would be making my house smell like bubblegum.

('And then, in this laborious nowhere,
suddenly the ineffable point where the pure too-little
mysteriously reverses ---, flips round into
the empty too-much.
Where the complex equation
equals zero.' -- Rilke, Fifth Elegy)

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