?Interrobang! · Track 12 · middle
A Smell to Raise the Dead
OBJECT (intimate, what Sisukiro found): a custom perfume blended to summon one person. OWNER (re-linked by Sisukiro): Stinky Steve — odor judge from the perfume houses of France; note the irony of the name. FOUND AT: the outer Kerguelen, the 'Desolation Islands'. THE (UN)LIKELY STORY & THE UNANSWERABLE QUESTION: Steve rates the world's scents though they call him Stinky; left a perfume blended to summon one person on the Islands of Desolation. Can a smell bring someone back?
Lyrics
[Intro] Just a little bottle. Glass against black volcanic rock. Here on the Islands of Desolation. So far from Grasse. So far from everything but the wind. [Verse 1] I can see you, the nose, the judge of odors. With your glass beakers and your blotter strips. Trying to capture one person in a formula. Top note of their laughter in a hallway. Heart note of their skin after the rain. Base note of the earth from their garden. You, who they called Stinky Steve, trying to build a perfect thing. [Chorus] Is this it? The alchemy? A smell to raise the dead? You carried it all this way, to the end of the world. Left it where the wind scours everything clean. Did you open it? Did you call their name? Can a smell bring someone back? [Verse 2] I twist the stopper. It’s cold in my glove. The air changes. Just for a second. It’s not perfume. It's a room. It’s a Tuesday in October. It’s the wool of a specific sweater. It’s the smell of coffee and a promise you couldn't keep. It is so terribly, terribly real. [Chorus] Is this it? The brutal magic? A smell to raise the dead? You carried it all this way, to the edge of the map. Left it where nothing grows but the toughest things. Did you breathe it in? Did you see their face? Can a smell bring someone back from that? [Bridge] Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec saw this place in 1772. He called it useless. Desolate. Did you think the same? Was this the only place empty enough to hold a ghost this size? Or did you hope the cold, the salt, the sulfurous cabbage on the wind would finally erase the memory you bottled? [Outro] I put the stopper back in. The ghost dissolves. Just the wind and the cold rock remain. And the question you left here. Did it work? Did it work for you?