November 1, 2017 :: Today's Words: 450 :: Total Words: 450

Your character has a sudden craving for petrichor ice-cream.

Robin wandered the aisles of the supermarket, trying to find the thing she was so desperately craving that she’d pulled into the mall parking lot as soon as she saw that it had a Sobeys. Of course, she had no idea just what it was her body wanted, just that it wanted something, so it was turning out to be a rather unproductive visit.

As she passed the ice cream freezer, something in her caused her to stop and look more closely at the case.

“Ice cream,” she whispered. It was definitely ice cream she wanted. But what flavour?

Robin scanned the boxes, cartons, and buckets of frozen sweetness, but nothing really captured her attention. Not Rocky Road, not Neapolitan, not strawberry swirl… she wasn’t sure how to figure it out, but she had this feeling that she’d know it when she saw it.

A green box caught her eye. It was tucked in the back of the second shelf, and there was only one left. She opened the freezer door and reached for the box.

Her fingers tingled when she picked it up, and not because it was cold.

The picture on the box was of a meadow with a rainbow in the sky. The brand wasn’t one she’d heard of before. “Palimpset Nursery?” she muttered, turning the box over in her hands. “What flavour is this, anyway?”

On the end, in large black capital letters, was the word PETRICHOR.

Robin frowned. Petrichor? It sounded like something out of the oil sands.

Finally she gave in to the burning curiosity and, after checking to make sure nobody was watching, she lifted the edge of one of the flaps.

She held the partly-open box up to her nose and inhaled.

Rain.

It smelled like rain.

No, not rain. That metallic, softly damp, greyish-green smell that comes after the rain.

What the heck?

She smelled the dessert again. Definitely that post-rain smell.

Robin sighed and moved to put the box back on the shelf—it was too weird, really, to take home—but paused at the last moment, her hand hovering over the spot the box had come from.

This was it. This was the thing she was craving.

Petrichor ice cream.

It seemed ludicrous, but there it was. Her entire reason for being in the store was right there in her hand. It smelled delicious. It smelled perfect, actually. She wondered what it would taste like.

Robin pulled the box back out of the freezer and set it in her basket, then set out for the pasta aisle. Might as well stock up on spaghetti noodles, since she was there anyway.