My friend B smells great. Of course he doesn't recognize his own scent, people never do. It's distinctive and alluring but not oppressive, it's there beneath any other transient scents, like shampoo or soap or whatever. Last night B fell asleep on my couch, as he often does, and as I watched him twitching and murmuring in his rather spazzy descent into deep slumber it occurred to me that when he dies not only will his consciousness be extinguished but his personal aroma will be lost too. Such ancillary properties of an individual life may not be as glamorous as emotions and personality but they're just as important in a way, you need them when you try to summon a full impression of that person. If B were to suddenly vanish I'd remember his pleasing scent for a while, and recalling or re-experiencing this scent would undoubtedly trigger in me intense feelings of loss and longing. And then eventually this strong sense memory would fade, and I'd have only my own memory of how much I liked his scent, rather than memory of the scent itself. This happens with all impressions eventually. Over time memories of a person thus become more about you than about the person you're remembering. A person is a set of raw materials you use to construct a scaffold or supporting framework, within which you construct a likeness of that person. After he or she disappears the scaffold collapses and you're left with a kind of free-standing representation, and you become attached to it even as the person's direct impression on you becomes hazy, or it becomes an effigy you are only too eager to set on fire, but in any event it doesn't necessarily have much to do with the actual person who inspired it.