25/04/2025

I Won't Be Held Accountable

If I don’t smell a fucking lilac soon, I won’t be held accountable for what might happen. This is the very stuff my soul is made of and now it’s out of my reach (see ‘I accidentally bought a flat’ for context'). I spot those bobbing purple plumes from the window of the train and resolve to get to the nearest lilac as soon as possible, but I don’t know when that will be and there’s a chance I won’t make it, and then what? Who will I become if I don’t fill my lungs with the sweet, warm medicine of this spring-time gift that I so look forward to each year? It mustn’t happen. I will not tolerate it. I’ll run away mid-sentence from a deep conversation. I’ll holler to stop the car. I’ll pull the emergency lever on the train doors and prise them open with my fingertips, if I have to. And, when I get there, I will take things very slowly. You mustn’t approach a lilac with too much vigour, you see. It has to be more seductive than that. A saunter, if you will, sizing her up from afar. A lingering, appreciative glance across her limbs. And then carefully selecting the branch that you wish to inhale and breathing deeply. As the magic courses through your veins and makes your head light with all that is good and pure and as simple as that, you’ll find your heels being drawn deeper into the ground beneath you, your body filled with perfume and a thought-stopping peace that imparts a knowledge that the world really needs more than anything right now: the wisdom of love. Sniff every fucking gorgeous lilac you see. And invite your friends to sniff them too. I don’t know, maybe it’ll start a worldwide lilac-sniffing bonanza, which would be a vast improvement on the current state of affairs. I’d like that.