Did you know that your sense of smell is your fastest sense? It's because it works by having tendrils of your brain which are exposed to the air in the roof of your nasal cavity. All the other senses use optic or aural or whatever nerves to send their messages to the brain, which takes a little bit longer. I think that's why smells are so evocative of not only places and people but feelings too.
The air this morning carried with it the smell of fear; of the fresh intake of students into secondary schools, far enough now into the term to have identified the bullies to whom they may fall victim, and for the bullies to have identified them. It smelt of seemingly endless lunch-hours trying to be invisible, of trying to beat out the sparks of confrontation in the powder-keg of the playground, of adrenaline pumped by a racing heart, fists clenched and lip bitten in the face of insults and abuse designed to provoke a violent response; of scuffles and scraps and beatings and blood and tears and rage and shame and humiliation. It smelt of pretending to be ill, and bunking off. And it smelt of finding refuge in books and in libraries and in music-rooms.
