Microfiction Day 178 – ‘Time Travel’

The smells rushed in at her, each jostling for her attention, crowding all of her senses.

Warm rubber from basketballs passed between hot hands.

Powdery chalk used to ease palms reddened by coarse rope.

And the sweat, layer upon layer, built up over the years like an olfactory mille-feuille. It lingered in the seats, tucked itself in corners, coated rackets and mats, trapped itself in nets like spider webs.

That was the one that snagged in her throat, that strange sweet and sour odour that never seemed to fade.

Back in that school gymnasium she was twelve again.