I don't know what this is...

But it just happened so I am going to keep it around and see if it goes anywhere.

_________________

He didn't smell bad. Which isn't to say he smelled good either. Rather the olfactory messages he transmitted were distinct. Like a note passed before gym class with the unmistakable penmanship of a boy you had never really noticed.

Until now. The finger-snap "now" when everything changes. That summer we were indistinguishable-- as if we were gestating in the same womb. He fell somewhere in between the movie-ticket stubs and laser-tag, or was it roller-blading? South of swimming pools but north of tree climbing; and every where you went that summer you were sweating in a sweltering time-capsule of simultaneous "it will always be this way" and "it will never be this way again". It was the last summer any of us were still kids. And it is the story of how I came to hate the smell of pepper.