1) Freshly-chopped garlic cloves. Tarragon. Rosemary. Several varieties of wild, edible mushroom.
2) Your pet racoon is sound asleep. Stroke its soft fur...
3) On a windowsill, a freshly-baked cherry pie sits, unattended.
4) In the printmaking department's supply room, heavy cans of etching and lithography inks await, beckoning for their paper and tape seals to be broken, revealing the strong, colorful and unique odors within.
5) After a heavy snowfall, the ground crunches gently underfoot as we walk through the woods. On the other side of the frozen river, the rusted hulks of three or four neglected army-surplus catamarans lay partially shrouded by the pale, iridescent blanket of ice.
6) The water in the turn-of-the-century cast-iron radiators had not been changed in a blue moon, and colored the atmosphere in the spacious yet dilapidated former long underwear factory with the distinct aromas (and a taste in the mouth that was of equal intensity) of coal dust, oxidation, and sewage.
7) The vacuum-tube amplifiers, once coveted for the warmth of their tone (musically speaking, that is), were now, many decades later, relegated to serve as space heaters for the hordes of squatters who had forcibly taken over the university, leaving the malnourished professors no alternative but to flee to Switzerland.
8) In the laboratory, tall glass beakers of ether, chloryform, nitric acid, and boiled saliva stood at attention on the long metal shelves which, despite their shoddy and unkempt appearance, had been constructed at great expense to the hospital.
9) My bronchitis is only getting worse, what with these locusts devouring all of our crops.
10) When your asthma takes the wind out of your sails, do you sometimes find that you have a hoarse throat?
11) Fresh durian.
12) How was I to know that wintermelon would taste like raw chicken-flavored bubblegum? I was expecting something tropical, like mango, papaya, or even kiwi, for Crissakes!
13) The plastic inner sleeve containing the mint-condition vinyl record crackled quietly, giving off a small charge of static electricity as it was removed from its jacket and separated from the flat, black disc within.
14) During the storm, the corrugated cardboard out of which the furniture had been hastily constructed began to sag noticeably. This deeply saddened the papier-mache tenants, and eventually led to their clay dog, Nazzbo, comitting suicide by eating dogfood intended for a real, flesh-and-blood dog.
15) Bad electrical wiring—mild electric shocks on your hands and fingertips. The (barely noticeable) smell of burnt hair, and a faint taste of adrenaline, or is it simply an acid taste in the mouth?
16) Grey clouds loomed overhead as the light drizzle continued, the mushy, cyclical refrain of a car with four flat tires slowly passing us on the rain-soaked asphalt, the driver a toothless goon with a severe case of strabismus.
17) The oversized pages of an ancient, leather-bound book containing the great mysteries of the ages being turned, rustling softly as the brittle paper bends and buckles under the weight of its master's gnarled hands—covered with liver spots—while in the background, a well-tended fire blazes.
18) Beneath the surface of the water, long, silver eels are visible. Their slender bodies glide in and out of view, and are made to appear all the more arabesque by the gentle currents that warp the lens of water through which they are being observed.
19) Under the wooden school desks (the surfaces of which are carved with Biblical references such as "mercyful fate" and "kilroy was begotten here"), dozens of different colors, shapes and sizes of chewed gum—now fossilized—are juxtaposed...
© James Goode