Interruptions

a short story (originally appeared in Exile Quarterly,

Her memory shot through every age, simultaneously, back to front and front to back, the eternal through the heart of the ephemeral.
                        Andrew Steinmetz, Eva’s Threepenny Theatre

1.

Alberta had a moment when she remembered everything: she remembered the smoke in her hair, she remembered the smell of his skin. It was as though she’d been startled from a deep sleep of decades, suddenly realizing where she actually was.

The slight fragrance of moisture through the kitchen window, slightly ajar. The fresh April air pushing out the last remnants of winter.
            Petrichor. After a droplet of rain strikes dry earth, the scent that releases. In part, from the Greek ichor, a fluid that flows in the veins of the gods. Rain. The smell, reducing her down to near zero. The quality of dust in the city nowhere near that of home. Alberta is immediately home.

Scent is the strongest trigger to memory. Alberta is nearly knocked over.