Tesseract
Some days I can smell it. Some days I wish there were a more elegant word in English than the quasi-vulgar sounding smell, but my thesaurus isn’t much help so it’ll have to do.
Il y a des jours où je peux le sentir. There.
I remember bitterly cold Wednesday mornings, walking out to the shelter, clipboard and keys in gloved hands. I pulled the plugs from the air intakes as I walked past the front of the plane, set my bag down and fumbled with the key to unlock the flimsy aluminum door. That done, I stowed my effects inside, removed the yoke locks, recorded the Hobbs and tach time and switched on the master. I heard the electric gyros whir as they spun up, noted the tanks’ fuel levels and dropped the flaps to 40°. The actuators groaned and rumbled until the flaps were extended. Switching off the master, I grabbed the fuel tester, dipstick and a rag from the ripped mesh pocket behind the seat. Leaded avgas trickled into the tester as I pressed it into a port on the underside of the wing. I checked for impurities, emptied it into the dirt next to the main and continued the preflight. No matter how scrupulous I was in attempting to avoid soiling my hands with fuel, engine oil or hinge grease, my fingers always ended up bearing the aroma of at least one of the three. And as the present days descend into winter, memories return of that convergence of textures, so ephemeral, and the stronger for it. There’s been little like them in my experience before or since. Their transience makes them that much more defining, I think.