Everyone composes
for the first spray.
We compose for
the hour after.
The trace something leaves when it goes.
The last of a season. The air a person leaves in a room. Nagori is made in India and named in Japanese, and it composes for that moment instead of the first impression. The house is in Delhi. The materials come from wherever they are best.
Six to ten weeks in sealed steel, before anything is bottled.
Five editions. Each built on one material with a stated origin.
Before the Rain
The twenty minutes before a storm breaks, when the ground is still hot and the air has already changed.
After the Silence
The resin a tree makes only where it has been wounded. Twelve hours on skin, and still on a scarf the next day.
Quiet Hour
The hour after everyone has gone home. It sits on the body and does not travel. Most people will not smell it.
Ember
One press before you leave. The saffron opens metallic, then leathers. The room keeps it after you have gone.
Night Bloom
After dark, when the mogra opens. Loud for an hour by intention, and close for the rest of the night.
Five more were composed and not carried forward. They keep their numbers. A.006 to A.010, struck.
A bottle is a long commitment to a smell you have met once.
The whole archive at two millilitres, in a Kōzo slipcase. Enough of each to wear it for a full day and find out what is left at hour six — which is the part we compose for. Five hundred rupees of the price is credited against whichever one turns out to be yours.
Ten objects, three materials.
Board dyed through rather than printed, so a scuffed corner stays black. A blind deboss at 0.35 millimetres, no ink. Cotton rag, unbleached, the deckle edge left raw. A paper seal meant to tear. Everything else was argued out.
A record is never erased. It is struck, and left readable underneath.
