Writing inspired by the following SWC prompt:

Vellichor

Vellichor is defined as the nostalgia of used bookstores and the feeling evoked by the scent of old books or paper. Write a story or a poem inspired by the atmosphere of vellichor.

Vellichor

by Connie Phlipot

The sensation inched up Dahlia’s nose, settling in her eyes, tearing them, clouding her contact lens. Stiffly, she rose from her seat on the floor, pushed a box of papers out of her way to reach the tissue box. Where were those damned tissues? Knowing the effect of the room’s atmosphere on her sinuses, as soon as she entered the house she’d rummaged through the other rooms in search of tissues. She’d found an unopened one in the back closet and placed it close at hand on a stack of unopened boxes. There it was, fallen onto the floor. She reached for it, knocking over the carton that stood between herself and the tissues. Yellow pages from a legal pad splattered around her, a photo crumbled into silver chrome pieces, a ball sprang out from her cardboard hiding places and rolled down the hallway, into the bathroom. Golf ball? No one in the family had played golf, as far as she knew.

Real tears, not sinus, but frustration induced, crystallized in the corner of her eyes. She grabbed a handful of tissues and blew her nose. She couldn’t go on. She could never go through all the detritus of a life forgotten.

Dahlia went to to the bathroom to wash her face, kicking the golf ball out of the way. She sat down on the toilet seat cover. The only “chair” in the house. How many times had she moved? At least a dozen. She considered herself an expert — able to make quick decisions. This box to the Goodwill, that notebook into the trash, a fine piece of cotton fabric from India to her seamstress friend. Fast, efficient. And, of course, she was disciplined in her purchases. She didn’t succumb to attraction of sales, nor did she need souvenirs or tsotches to remind her of the places she had visited. She bought only what she needed or that she truly liked, regardless of where it was from.

Cleaning out her aunt’s home when she moved to the memory care facility seemed like the perfect way for her to help out her cousins. They’d left the house untouched for months after Aunt Jo’s move.

“I just can’t deal with it,” Jeannie, the eldest cousin, whimpered into the phone.

“But it’s only things, objects, dust-to-dust,” Dahlia said.

“Maybe, but every time I go into the house and open a box, take out a photo, or a book, even an old calendar, my mind freezes. This is my mother’s life. I can’t deal with it.”

Dahlia sighed. “I understand,” though she didn’t. “Let me help you out.”

Jeannie’s relief rang through the phone like a hallelujah chorus. “That’s wonderful! I’m sure we can do it quickly together.”

They met a week later at Aunt Jo’s house at the end of a suburban cul-de-sac. Jeannie was waiting for her on the stoop, jiggling her keys. Dahlia had walked from the bus stop, not having remembered how far away the house was from the center of town.

“Listen, Dahlia dear, I have some errands to run. Why don’t you get started and I’ll join you in a bit. I put some empty boxes in the living room. You can use them to sort.” She’d dashed off the steps toward her car, giving Dahlia no time to object or ask questions.

Dahlia had expected she and and Jeannie would work together. She should have known better. Jeannie simply wanted this project to go away, without her involvement. Why had Dahlia been so stupid? Of course, she would have to do it herself. No problem. It was easier this way – no Jeannie to interfere when she tossed something into the give-away box, saying it was her mother’s favorite this or that. She’d be able to move fast, decisively, on her own.

The scent of old paper, decaying leather, mildew blasted her when she’d entered the living room. Stifling a sneeze, she’d taken in the enormity of the task. The room, some 100 by 120 meters, was piled high with boxes, each one covered in a skim of mold. Aunt Jo must have kept these in her basement. At least Jeannie had had them brought up to the relatively dry and sunny living room. Dahlia pulled open the drapes in front of the picture rooms to let in more sunlight, unleashing an avalanche of decades-old dust. She’d pulled her hair into a ponytail, ready to work.

What kind of life had Aunt Jo lived? Dahlia had never really thought about her. Her father’s sister was, to Dahlia’s mind, a typical middle-class housewife in middle America in the middle of the last century. Raised three children who turned out okay as far as Dahlia could tell. They’d been friends, these cousins, played together, visited on holidays until their grandparent had died. Then drifted away from each other. Dahlia got in touch with Jeannie when she’d moved to her city. They had lunch or coffee together from time to time, but they never re-forged those childhood bonds.

She couldn’t waste time thinking of the past. She had to be systematic, not let the enormity of the job overwhelm her. She set the three empty boxes in front of her — imagine three boxes for sorting all this stuff. Like in her own packing and sorting, she’d designated one for “give away,” another for “trash” the last for “to save.” She wanted to begin in the far corner, but getting to those boxes would require an agility she no longer possessed; she’d have to work from the inside out, despite how it disturbed her sense of order.

Photos — black and white — slid on the floor when she’d opened the first, over-stuffed box. Some crumbled as she picked them up, making her task easier. If only they would all dissolve and she could sweep them into the garbage. She’d be done in a few hours. But, under those ruins were intact photographs. Her usual method was, if she couldn’t identify any of the people in the pictures, she’d trash them. And she knew none of these people in their early post-war dresses and suits – men with neat, sharply parted, short haircuts; woman with marcel waves. They looked a lot like her own parents, but they were complete strangers. Should she set them aside, see if Jeannie knew them? No, by her absence Jeannie had given her full authority to deal with everything as she saw fit.

Turning over one photo that had slipped out of the box, she hesitated. A woman in the dark beret, in a very chic, knee length skirt, almost what they now called a pencil skirt, with a short peplum jacket. Wasn’t that Aunt Jo 50-60 years ago? A man stood next to her; the photo snapped as he was shifting his glance from Jo toward the photographer. He was very definitely not Uncle Bill. This man was tall, Bill was a half-head shorter than Jo. He had thick hair, a distinctive wave above his brow. Already from her first memories of him, when he was probably in his late twenties, Bill had been bald. Dahlia rifled through the other photos looking for matches. She found five more of the same woman, each time in a different stylish outfit, each time with a different man. She placed them in a row on the floor, then dug some more in the box.

A leather-bound notebook was between the layers of photos, half filled with a looping, girlish handwriting. The ink partially smeared from the days of fountain pens. A clue here to the photographs? Dahlia sat cross-legged on the floor and flipped through the pages. Complaints about her classes, gossip about her school mates, weather reports. Nothing to help her understand the who, the when, the where of the photos. Why didn’t people identify their pictures? Of course, did she? Her gallery of electronic photos with some vague AI generated identification of place that was usually wrong. No one thought that their descendants would study these glimpses of the past for clues about themselves.

Then the itch, the incipient sneeze began and she knew she would never finish the task.