Evolution has bestowed on me five senses that are vital to assimilate my world and I could never imagine doing without any of them. Sight floods a steady stream of flipped images into my brain that are inverted back to normal through a magical process, allowing me to capture it all right side up; hearing replays an endless loop of meaningful sounds that facilitates communication and understanding; taste makes my world rich and delicious, as well as unpalatable; the sense of touch makes it tactile, allowing for both pleasure and pain; smell screams out if something is foul, or can trick my senses into a state of craving.

Smell also has a transporting quality about it and without notice can take me from simply biting into a pizza, to standing on the Rialto bridge on the Grand Canal in Venice where I once stood in a hazy and misplaced day, that is recovered again in great detail in the folds of a scent. The smell of mint suddenly sails me into Morocco, where I drank tea laden with its leaves and walked through ancient streets and markets that looked like movie sets frozen in time. A stronger whiff forcibly yanks me into a centuries old cafe, where cadverous old men fumigated themselves with hashish and exaled Aladdin and a thousand thieves on gilded carpets waiting to fly me away.

Smell was obviously vital as my ancient ancestors traversed over savannas thousands of years ago, trying to figure out what was beneficial and what was to be avoided. And perhaps they left me with something since the smell of a barbecue seems to stir up a primal arousal and remembered importance that transcends other smells, as if my genes somehow carry instinctual instructions encoded through eons that lures me to the smell of food cooking on a fire, whether I'm hungry or not.

There are other smells that carry messages of more immediate yesterdays, like the scent of wood burning in a fireplace, that can instantly bring me back to mislaid moments spent camping in the Sierras with my family. As the fire burns, the smoke of yesterday swiftly carries me back to unhurried days, where time stood still during the endless days of Summer. We lived under the stars aside raging fires of red and gold, that uttered a shrill call and billowed smoke into my young imagination, forming countless dancing apparitions that haunted my dreams beneath the black and tree filled sky. The morning smell of eggs cooking combined with the right accents of pine and soil, signaled a new day that chased away the haunts that stole the night.

The smell of cake and burning candles, wafting through tiny inner passages of remembrance, quickly drags me back to a place where I was the most important person for a day and wishes really came true simply by blowing out the candles. And a certain gas-oil lawnmower smell lands me on the seat of my old Yamaha 100 dirt bike – now absorbed by rust - that on a shinier day would rip me across the desert to the first whip-di-doo that availed its self, with the intent of hurling me headlong over the handlebars. The rich smell also has enough room to carry along my step- father following on his bike, amazed at seeing me fly through the air at 50 miles an hour, bounce like a rag doll, and get up and laugh it off. I can soar through an empty red desert in that scent, under an endless Arizona sky that stole all the hues off an artist's pallette.

The unexpected smell of a train usually catches me off guard and speeds me along to other yesterdays, when I took a great trip across the US. Within the diesel and track odor, lie an endless stretch of track and wonder; there always waiting within the same aroma, beneath the same full moon that painted the empty desert in pale blue, and allowed room for Indians and tepees to magically grow out of the soil of a young boy's imagination. Another draw of the scent races the train through thickets that hid lurking train robbers, only to be driven off by honest TV cowboys like The Rifleman who were real and sprang up out of nowhere to save the day. If the smell lingers long enough, I can once again climb into the raised glass-dome car that gave a better view of the flowing landscape, where countless fireflies that looked like tiny dancing strobes held in an already starry expanse, would fan around the moving train like scattering diamonds.

Occasionally, the accidental smell of a certain perfume carries me back to my first love – a pretty blue-eyed girl who changed my world forever. Her lost fragrance allows me to once again describe the perfect lines that fell down her neck and across her shoulders, as I crossed into a place that never let me return. Carried by the scent, she reaches out through time when I least expect it, as if to remind me of something that only took place in a dream.

Although some smells hold no significance and quickly dissipate, others carry in them traces of things that should be remembered. Like waking up to find out something was only a dream, the timeless scents often remind me that the moments that seemed like dreams were actually real. Random smells like mint and trains, carry in them the keys to lost shadowboxes brimming with the past - hidden safe within tiny scent molecules, just waiting to explode again and again when I least expect it.

The Room (Eng. Assign.)

A numbered door guards both a quiet and deafening space. Like the mouth of a cave, the entrance belies the contents, shrouding its immensity and revealing only small hints of substance, which strain to be noticed under a tenuous light.

The space is confining, a few hundred square feet at most. There is a worn fabric couch, generic in appearance with a colorful stitched pattern competing with dirty-worn arm rests. If moved, its outline is etched heavily into the carpet, showing contrasting divides of purity and soil. Next to it is a small table and lamp, utilitarian at most. On the table is a nearly complete LA Times cross word puzzle from a couple of Sundays back, a deck of cards, a TV Guide, and a dusty chess set with the white king not quite centered on its square.

The decor reeks of Brady Bunch and is firmly locked in place, with occasional hints of worldliness mixed in from trinkets collected abroad. A shelf holds a wooden box that houses a purple heart military medal, honorable discharge papers, and assorted documents outlining various campaigns fought in. There is also an application for a patent, with details of a invention called “Filtar,” the first of its kind, when cigarettes were only offered non-filtered. It was a filter attachment that was able to remove 98% of the tar and nicotine produced by the cancer sticks, but never made it to the store shelf. Several books fill a small bookcase, mainly classics.

A hanging lamp hovers above a Formica table and four chairs, all tucked in place except one. There is an old Smith Corona portable typewriter on the table with a neat stack of papers full of text. One sheet is pulled aside and has a glass stain on it with corrections here and there in red. Near the table is a counter and two stools. There is an overhang of wall above it, with a bit of an art installation tacked up - a fishing net and some plastic sea plants; a testament to the ocean and its allure. A carved-wooden seagull stands below on the counter, like a sentry with blank eyes – still standing somewhere in some unknown space.

An empty gin bottle sets on the counter with some loose change - a quarter, a dime, a couple of pennies, and a crumbled receipt. Nearby, a painting of a lone sailboat hangs askew. In a paper bag that serves as the trash, a hastily unwrapped TV dinner package and a broken glass mingle.

Pictures dot the refrigerator, random smiling faces enjoying lost-happy moments beneath a layer of cooking grim. The stove adjacent seems well used, with old-dried drips of miscellaneous sauces on top as hard as cement. A lone dusty kettle waits to heat water for tea. The air is stale; the windows and doors seem forever sealed – constricting the space in rapid exhalations faster than new air can be drawn in. Invisible juxtapositions of frenzied energy fill the space; creativity at arms with ennui and frustration, both vying for dominance. The sum of the parts falters, as lost distinction drowns within.