i was coming out of the physics building today, after lecture, and passing by a laboratory when i was jolted by a strong whiff of - a smell of hospitals - not the sterile smell of medicated air freshener and unventilated air - but a specific smell - an indescribable one connected with plastic, and tubes down your throat and masks over your face, and the memory of childhood hospitalisation and physiotherapy and asthma and fear and being made to breathe a foul vapour and this smell i hadn't known i remembered and i fled the building.