Two seconds in a doorway

Your body turned before you did. Someone passed you in a doorway, the scent reached you, and for two or three seconds something in your chest leaned toward it. You didn't decide that. That's the part that rattles you. One breath of hallway air, and you're questioning everything. Do you want this as much as you thought?

Get the label right, because the label decides what happens next. That was a memory firing, not an appetite coming back. Smell takes a shortcut to memory that skips the thinking part. It's why one whiff of sunscreen can hand you a whole summer in a second. The cigarette is pawning your old memories to make a sale. Nothing came back. Nothing was undone.

Pass it enough ordinary times and the scent can change sides. The lean fades to a shrug. Later it's just a smell in a hallway. You can't rush that. Your brain relearns on its own schedule, and every calm pass teaches it something. You don't have to hate it yet. You only have to keep walking.

Next time it hits, keep moving and count ten steps. Notice how different step ten feels from step one. That's repair, happening in real time, in a hallway, with nobody watching. Say it under your breath as you go. Walk me past this one, Father. The scent still knows your name. It just doesn't get an answer.