Antiseptic has an incredibly overwhelming smell.
Falling off your bike and getting an awfully painful scrape is a universal experience. You wash it and put antiseptic on it. The chemicals go as soon as they come, however you always wince at that initial sting. The smell lingers – God, that's awfully strong.
And hospitals reek of antiseptic. If you step into one, it's the first and primary smell that hits you. It's not illogical. Antiseptic and other disinfectants practically run a hospital. Obviously they're used to treat patients and sanitize the structure. That's the answer. That's why hospitals smell like that.
The hospital staff aren't the only ones accustomed to that smell. Those aged but pristine white halls worn down from the years of being on the receiving end of the desperate, hurried sprinting of staff and loved ones, the aggressive wheels of medical equipment and stretchers. Walls yellowed from the leaking pipes that are determined to let through the water they cannot fit, leaking again and again no matter how many times they've been fixed. Those walls that have seen countless lives starting, restarting and ending. They've heard every cry, relief, joy, disappointment. But the loudest, and the most pungent, has to be the sound of despair. The broken sobs of regret, longing, and helplessness fill the halls more often than the others. It smells like a thunderstorm.
Midnight rain that spans on and on, so powerful trees look as if they're hugging the earth asking Her to hold on a little tighter, alongside the lingering scent of dust and debris. Thunderstorms bring peace for some and devastating loss for others. Loss smells like thunderstorms.
Stronger than that, is the smell of grief. Grief smells like petrichor. Earth after the storm. It's generally described as a pleasant smell. Its comforting
nature does not change the fact that it is a reminder. A reminder of the events of the night prior. Floods, whole neighborhoods being completely swept away. The ones who truly understand petrichor are the ones that have lost to it. Grief smells like petrichor.
Antiseptic hides these smells. What seems to be an annoying disturbance to the nose is a shield that protects the person from reality. Hospitals are the home to loss and unending grief. The scents would kill anyone that has the misfortune of encountering them.
But even the antiseptic is a liar. It's only here to tell you everything is controlled and safe. It wants you to believe you'll be okay, your people will be okay. But it can only hide the past. When the smell of rain begins entering the seemingly sealed hospital room, the antiseptic cannot hide it. When grief overtakes the heartbroken mother, when the brother punches a hole in the wall because someone must hold back their tears, and when the little baby isn't placed in its mother's arms after birth, the antiseptic can only wait at the door till it has passed. Till the halls are empty once more. Only then can it hide the reality of death.
