Scent

"Your scent," the old person in the art gallery began, "what is it? I just can’t recall it."

What should I say? His old, water-blurred eyes look at me with expectant longing. I think for a moment before I answer:
"It’s the scent of new beginnings."

A glimmer of light sparks in the elderly person’s eyes, as if the cells of his body were slowly being replaced by new, life-filled ones.
"Yes, of course, that must be it."

And so we sit there, looking at the painting before us in the quiet, in a hall filled with the afternoon sun.