The Sweet Scent of Pork

Meet Charlie. He's a simple pig farmer from southern Iowa. To Charlie, there's nothing finer than the delicate scent of a freshly watered pig pen after a heavy rain, the kind of rain that only comes after the first week of October. It had a kind of earthy sweetness that was all its own, incomparable to anything else in the whole world. And, to Charlie, anyway, it was a scent that was too pure and natural not to share with everyone he met. Wherever he went, Charlie lugged one of his pigs along with him to spread the joyous scent of an autumn-soaked porker, unabashed by people's reluctance to indulge. Smell my pig, he'd say to an unsuspecting stranger waiting in line somewhere, pointing the animal's snout at them like a rare, tantalizing truffle. The result was always the same; people would sneer at Charlie in disgust, then turn away, some even feigning being called away by imaginary family members. He'd even tried different tactics, pointing the other end of the animals under people's noses in case the sweetest element of the pig's scent was actually emanating from there. The smell coming from a muddy, water-logged swine was not only the most wonderful thing Charlie had ever encountered, but he eventually noticed that it was the only odor his olfactory senses would even bother to pick up. This only reinforced his belief that it was the most heavenly scent on the planet, and only further confused the issue of why others would gag when he asked them to smell his pigs. What Charlie didn't realize was how years of dealing in pig waste had caused his smell receptors to deteriorate almost to nonexistence from the constant assault of pure ammonia. But still, he could smell a muddy, sodden porker from miles away, and it smelled divine. On the way out of the local market, Charlie stepped in front of a pair of elegantly dressed women, and shoved his pig of the day in their faces, the pig's nose even brushing one of the women's lips. Smell my pig, he said quickly. Both women fell to their knees and wretched on the ground in response. Charlie hurriedly stepped back in disgust, called the women philistines, and walked back to his farm, resolute in his belief that people don't know a good scent when they smell one.

© 2015 Biography of a Nobody