Written: while researching odd jobs and secretly wishing I was good at science and therefore could spend my days creating new flavors for Ben & Jerry’s
Powered by : Ben & Jerry’s
Inspired by: Ben & Jerry’s
Two chemists meet in a bar. He offers to buy her a drink, and they take turns dissecting the various flavor components inside of it, the ingredients, the odor molecules. She is a flavorist, aided by a PhD in biochemistry and a lifelong sweet tooth. He, a fragrance specialist, splicing up the perfect blends for shampoos and soaps.
On their first date they visit the botanical garden, and he can name the flowers by scent, even with her fingers covering his eyes. On their fifth date she can list the chemical makeup of his cologne from kissing his neck. Their wedding cake is acai and brown sugar, their baby smells like mossy wood.
And most days when they return home saturated in the tastes and smells of living–the grape jelly and honeydew and sweat and cinnamint and praline and orange peel and jackfruit and eucalyptus–they meet in the shower. They brush their teeth and scrub beneath their fingernails and when they kiss one another, when they lean in close, all they can sense is the water.