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Janie smelled like something sweet, something made up, like a candy store
with the door closed too long. Claire smelled like a lawn product, hazy,
aerosol, capped. Only Molly smelled of the outdoors. She kept crickets in the
top drawer of her desk all winter. It became a ritual with her: in Autumn, before
the first frost, she captured a dozen crickets, carrying them to a Hellman's
mayonnaise jar with hollow hands. She dumped them in, screwed on the top,
and later put them to graze in the top drawer of her desk. They lived in grass
clippings and cedar and maybe that's why Molly smelled so good. At night, after
we had turned to spoons, I put my nose against her hair. The crickets rubbed
from the desk, summer, winter, spring, and cedar baked into the air at every
breath.
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©1999
Joseph Monninger and Nerve.com
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