The Smell of Cold

The power of water and soap can't be stressed enough – when used sparingly, that is.

Clean has an odor of itself, not of the person. Clean is aseptic, anonymous; clean individuals entangle with any other clean person's persona, like cadavers which smell the same: cold.

Cold is a smell of rubbing alcohol without the alcohol – cold, not fresh – plus a squeeze of pungency which can't be matched but in death when the body hasn't been burnt or eaten by maggots. Human or animal. I've seen and handled both.

The dead are identical: they have all turned from tall to long, their corpses have a cold clean smell after their orifices have been taken care of. Who wants to smell clean?