The Scarlet Scarf

2022: Mauritius

The sea air always brought with it something odd, something slightly distasteful, she felt. Misha had initially imagined it to be the remaining whiffs of long dead sea life, maybe fish and turtles and algae and molluscs and who knows what else, all dead and somehow decayed into evaporated hydrocarbons that the sea wind mixed with and blew to the shore. But it was not that. She had had all kinds of seafood now for lunch and dinner and all the times in between, over the past year of living in Black River, on the western edge of the island of Mauritius, and not a single one of the seafood dishes tasted anything like what the smell felt like.

Smell and taste. Taste and smell. Like two sides of a coin, she had been told. One makes the other. But which comes first, she wondered? The answer was probably hidden deep in some scientific study or the other, somewhere and probably prefaced with nuanced context; all of which she was not bothered to spend time on just this moment. Gazing wistfully into the open sea, towards the haze on the horizon - that was the "thing to do" for her at this moment, as she wondered about everything that had happened in her life.

This very moment, her "now", where the above-mentioned sea air was somewhat cinematically (she imagined!) blowing her wisps of medium length blond hair over her shoulders, and was systematically dishevelling the strands flopped to the front. These then fell over her forehead and eyes and nose, in random order. So that at some points in space, at some points in time, her actual face was, more or less - totally hidden behind all the blond-ness. And there was only the straw-like hair, crystal blue eyes peering out from within the yellow oval. And freckles, peeking out sometimes, unexpectedly, from wherever the thin free flowing silken strawy wisps allowed.

Her neck was bare, her collarbones exposed, with her oversized white jumper flapping about furiously in the wind. She wished she had brought along a scarf (which instantly made her think of "The Scarf"...), as the wind was quite chilly. Ah yes, THE Scarf, as opposed to, merely, a scarf...

That was THE topic worthy of reminiscence. Maybe even deserving of a considerable bout of nostalgia, she thought. Wait, can one will oneself, to feel nostalgic, she wondered? Can one intentionally induce nostalgia? She imagined it to be possible, even fairly easy. All those memories, and all that time. Just swilling about inside her head.

The wind was by now following a pattern she could make out, a regular raucous racket, as it whistled in and out of the forlorn looking trees on the cliff. The rocks stood steady, yet visually precarious, perched on the edge of the cliff, looking down below onto the jagged shore, where the waves, even from this height, from the top, beat fiercely on the black sand below.

This was not the Mauritius of the tourist brochures. No white sand and warm sun. This was Black River, in the winter, a place that many a weathered fisherman called home, and where, despite attempts by the Government to tame with generous doses of Western-backed education, and Chamber-of-Commerce subsidised industry, tourist resorts, post sea sports and the like, and even Amazon-funded warehouses and fulfilment centres, despite all this, there still hung in the air, a distinct wildness of spirit, a very peculiar and mysterious poverty of the restless mind and soul, almost as if the place harboured secrets from the past, that it cherished above all else, and definitely above all the promises of modern development and progress and comfort. This was not a comfortable place, if you dug in, beyond the surface of the 5 star resorts. The real Black River was as gritty and earthy as the colourful clay of Chamarel. Although of course, one may find a sort of beauty in its barebones and sea air, foul smell and all. (The rotting carcasses of the sea birds? Maybe that was where the smell came from! Or maybe it was all just a trick of Misha's mind....)

Amidst all this, as per her intention, Misha's induced nostalgia had now centred squarely around a specific item, that of course she no longer had around her neck. She gently stroked her bare collarbones, wistfully, her fingertips exploring the contours, as if remembering and more importantly - summoning! - the scarlet scarf that would have been there 10 years ago, and that she so wished was there now...