gasp

I stepped outside my office building early this morning, and it smelled like trout. By the bay, the scent of the day changes with the tide, the time of the year, whether or not the wastewater treatment facility nearby has drained into the bay...but this morning, it smelled like trout. Like during summer up in the mountains north of Truckee, when my grandfather would clean the fish they caught in the early hours on the makeshift sink we had at our campsite. He would lay the fish out, side by side, on newspaper, and deftly clean them. I would watch, elbows on the counter, eager to see if the fish were boys or girls....whether or not they had eggs inside. This morning, outside smelled exactly how that moment smelled; visceral, algal, and pescado.