Snovid's diary

Chapter 11. Smell

The smell of burning grass ...

I was again near the five-story apartment building, where I spent my childhood, but this time opposite our entrance, where a small path lead into an old cherry orchard. Mom was next to me again. Looking at my hands, I immediately recalled my main goals.

"Mom, I know I'm dreaming, where should I look for the wall? Teach me," I thought, and the dream heard me. Talking in a dream is pointless. Thoughts are the best way to communicate with your dreams. At first, she wanted to take me there, but then she stopped and thought for a moment.

"You can find it yourself, look for the scent," she said after a moment's reflection. This was quite the surprise. Smell? There are no smells in a dream! But I didn't want to argue, and obediently, I walked down the street, breathing deeply, trying to catch the scent of anything.

It was a sunny afternoon in this small town, as I walked along a street with small two-story houses on my left, and a meadow full of trees on the right. The trees were casting a deep shadow in the midday sun, and behind them on a high embankment, there was a railway. I tried to smell everything: flowers and trees. I was taking deep breaths from my chest, but there was no scent. At some point, I even asked a passerby if I was going in the right direction, to which he nodded in affirmation. After a while, I came to an intersection where a second road branched off to the right. I felt, this was where I had to go. Passing under the railway bridge, I went out into the field, and stopped near a little forest. White smoke came billowing from the field, and made me stagger back when it reached me. The sour, acrid smell of burnt grass hit my nose. I was even tearing up from the smoke, and could not keep my eyes open for much longer. Regardless, this was the smell of smoke! It felt so real, I got scared that my apartment outside of the dream might be on fire. Something stopped me from trying to wake up, though. The white smoke and the burning dry grass were causing the smell, I was sure of it, and the smoke was not identical to smoke caused by fire. I pulled myself together and remained within the dream. It was difficult to be there. It was even hard to breathe now.

Iheaded back along the same road to the town and just walked the streets for awhile. Here, I could smell nothing. Already about to wake up, it dawned on methat I had made a mistake in leaving that field without examining the source ofthe smoke more closely. It came to me that I had not even seen fire. The smokehad even looked identical to the one out of which the wall of fog was made. Thewall had to have been there. I just hadn't managed to get my bearings. I hadfailed to see the wall. No matter how strange mom's advice was, she had beenright. I had found a scent and it had emanated from the smoke-like fog. This realizationstuck with me: that I had been able to smell something in a dream...