Eau de Memory

The waft of coconut on the skin of the one in line for the water slide.

Round steak simmering in onion soup.

The strewn debris of a pink eraser's aftermath.

These are long ago smells that now feel more like tastes in my brain.

Are tastes just compressed smells, converted to take up less RAM, streamlining the idle background usage of our brains?

Or is this malfunction evidence that I never really lived these memories, and that they were uploaded by my manufacturers?

Pity the man who never makes peace with that possibility.