Alan Bundoc

Pinatubo

The planes again. I don’t recognize them by sight, nor by sound, but by smell. That foul odor that smells of jam fished out from a cavity. The effluvium descends from the stratosphere and sneaks in through the gaps between door and frame, through a window I forgot to close, and it saturates the rooms in each house in seconds. On the sidewalk, heads send their glances skyward, several sending spit and curses alongside. They find nothing; the aircrafts have departed long before their cargo touches the ground. After a couple of minutes, when everyone has exhausted their complaints and olfactory fatigue has set in, activity restores on the streets, and people return to their houses or duck into their cars and drive off.