Smell is a visceral connection to the world, and a description of same can sneak right past your normal defenses to make the words on page bloom into a world behind your eyes.
This can be a wonderful, or a terrible thing.
But how do you describe the smells of a place you’ve never been?
Ah, time for research! Here’s a lovely one for you – the smells and sights of rural Autumn in Japan.
https://ombreolivier.substack.com/p/the-smells-of-early-autumn
Mad Genius Club 
5 responses to “The smells of Autumn”
I remember the smells of autumn from my childhood. The smell of smoke predominated, from smoke houses, chimneys, piles of leaves and other rubbish, and most of all, from the fields that were burnt off to fertilize the land and discourage weeds and vermin. The moon a deep orange from the haze hanging in the air, the night air crisp with the promise of winter. The smell of pumpkin and squash in the kitchen, the last of the zucchini walnut bread.
Apparently the smell of No Man’s Land was indescribably horrible.
Apparently all battlefields smell a bit like that, to varying degrees of horrificness.
In 1992 I was at the Imperial War Museum. They had recently opened a display on trench warfare, with all details except boot-sucking mud. The smell got to me. I made it half-way through and bolted. It was the scent of death, mud, and decay. The curator was quite proud of “getting it right.”
When I smelled death some years later during a medical flight, it raised the hairs on my neck. Exact same base scent, same purely visceral response and knowledge of what had hit my nose.
Then, if it hits your allergies, the answer is “Nothing.”
This is me.