Story "The smell of meat"

The smell of meat.

It so happened that the other day I went to the vegetable shop. Around the deli that is on the way, there was a huge refrigerator from which two guys in white robes, spattered with blood, dragged what until recently were cows and that now hung as dead weight on iron hooks inside the truck. I habitually turned my eyes away from the action, but I felt the smell of this entire thing. Familiar to the pain, sweet, sugary, sickening. Pinching my fingers to my nose, I passed by, and then flew into a question - how do I know so well that smell? Yes, I know, so smell butcherys. But... it’s not it. Long time ago.

It's been more than a week since then, but the question still remained. And not far off as yesterday - I remembered. I knew that I knew. I felt a similar smell for the first time at age four, when I found myself at my grandmother’s funeral. I was led to the coffin, standing in the center of the room. Relatives wept quietly around, and some even kissed the dead woman's forehead. Someone said - kiss your grandmother. It terrified me, and in an instant the decision was made - no way. Stupidly standing next to the coffin and trying not to look at its content, I suddenly felt THIS smell. The grandmother in the coffin smelled an awful scent defiantly. So smell the corpses, funeral homes, catafalques and butcherys. As it so happened that I forgot about the first encounter with him, with the smell? And then suddenly wafted, exactly like then, almost half a century ago. And it caused the same disgust. The smell of death.

Russian original