A Scented Elixir

The putrid scent tickled the insides of her nostrils, causing her nose to wriggle about, seemingly of its own accord.

“Ewwww,” spat out the young boy nearby. “What is it, Papa?” The child’s watery eyes made a disdainful inquiry northward, towards the gray-haired man’s face.

His grandfather’s mouth twitched into a grin. He leaned down and whispered in a conspiratorial fashion, assuring his words possessed enough volume to travel to the disturbed lady’s eardrums too. “That elixir the doctor administered…must be doing its job. I feel livelier already.”

Without missing a beat, his young companion offered a wide-eyed nod of sincerity, agreeing, “That’s ‘cause whatever was dead in there made its way out here with us.”

At this, his mom swatted the boy’s head and pulled him well away from their offender’s strike zone. She had no intention of suffering any further from Irritable Foul Syndrome.

***

Yes…I went there.

I might’ve been pulling your leg, but I’ll surely not pull your finger!

-jody

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I stumbled across a new blog place to share that seemed to fit with me, Write on Edge. (Since my Twitter ‘handle’ is jody_on_edge & my recent novel is “At the Water’s Edge,” writing on the edge seems quite probable for me.) This probably isn’t the best way to introduce myself to a new writing community; but know, if nothing else, it’s a forthright introduction of edginess. The challenge from the Write on Edge community is as follows:

This week, be inspired by the sense of smell. It’s said scent is the strongest tie to memory, and aroma is a powerful force—for good and awful! Is your nose engaged? Now I give you the word Elixir:

elixir |iˈliksər|
noun
a magical or medicinal potion: an elixir guaranteed to induce love.
• a preparation that was supposedly able to change metals into gold, sought by alchemists.
• (also elixir of life )a preparation supposedly able to prolong life indefinitely.
• a medicinal solution of a specified type: a natural herbal cough elixir.
ORIGIN late Middle English: via medieval Latin from Arabic al-’iksīr, from al ‘the’ + ‘iksīr from Greek xērion ‘powder for drying wounds’ (from xēros ‘dry’).