The Curse of the Aroma

  I have never dreamed that I will hear someone calling me Engineer Carlos Crus and that I will see the beautiful top view of Manila on the roof top of my house. From being a “probinsiyano” to a successful engineer, I enjoy my life now. I have a wife and two children and it was my dream family, my dream life.

  A taxi delivered me in a wide savanna and rocky mountain, it was my home town. I saw a nipa hut and beside it a bench where a lady was sitting. From a distance, I could smell the lady and her unforgettable aroma. I ran down to approach her and to see her face but a stone slipped me that causes me to roll on the mountain until I fall on a very deep trench. I am scared but the thing that was in my mind was the aroma of the lady, an aroma that I want to smell forever.

  I woke up in a private hospital beside me was my wife, she was sleeping. I poke her to wake her up. I asked her what happened to me and she said that she just saw me floating amidst of our pool. I remembered the lady and I realized that it was just a dream, an unforgettable dream as well as the aroma.

  Few days later, I started working like there was nothing happened to me. I forced my self to see everything as normal, the moon is still shining, the stars are still twinkling and I am still  Engineer Carlo Crus but deep inside, there is something different, something strange.

  I am waiting for my breakfast one morning and I could smell something familiar but I could not tell what it is. Few minutes later, my wife lay my breakfast on our round table, a sandwich. I asked her if she cooked anything else but she said no. I just thought that it was my wife’s perfume as if she wore it.

  It was my manner to drink coffee in my office during 12:00 p.m. As I stir the circumference of the cup, I smelled again the scent that I had smelled a while ago but I just thought that it was the coffee, just the coffee.

  As I got home, I ask my wife if she was smelling something and said no. I am lying in my bed and thinking what that smell is and where did it came from? I remembered my dream. My first impression about that dream, beautiful, had changed. It became a nightmare. I am keep on thinking about the lady, the mountain and the aroma. My eyes involuntarily closed because of tiredness of thinking about that dream.

  As the days passed by, the aroma stuck my nose stronger. Days become months but the aroma gets stronger. I decided to go to the place where the aroma came from, my hometown. Maybe there I could find the answers to my questions. I had tried to turn on the engine of my car but it seems to be not working so I hire a taxi and I said that we would go to the place where my mind was flummoxed, my home town.

  As my feet landed on the wide grassy and rocky mountain, I saw the hut and the lady. I vigorously ran until I reached the hut. I want to talk to the lady but she refused to talk to me besides, she ran but I ran upon her. Without noticing that it was already the end of the land and next to it is a trench, a very deep trench, I slipped and fall down . I saw her face and I recognized her. I remembered her.

  She is my childhood friend and first love, Martha. We grew together until I discover that I love her. I gave her all, dress, love and.. and.. everything. But she doesn’t love and she cannot give the love that I gave her so I grasp her fragrance and.. and.. I raped her. I am afraid so I killed her. Out of her dead body, I extracted her and made a perfume. I spilled all of the perfume on a piece of her dress’ cloth so I could remember her and after that I threw her on the trench. Now, that I am here, near at the death’s hook, I am very happy because we will be together forever. I will forever have her fragrance and will smell her eternal.. aroma.