After I posted the “floral clock” from The Book of Perfumes (1868), I learned about Patrick Palcic’s beautiful olfactory clock, “Es liegt was in der Luft” (2016), or “There is something in the Air.” Every hour, the clock rotates until a scent trickles down the heated clock face, releasing a unique smell at every hour.

The idea of a clock is especially resonant for me right now—or rather, it’s especially dissonant. Time feels structureless as one day becomes another. A weekday working from home has no demarcation from evenings and weekends. Outside it’s spring, but this season feels like a big question mark and none of us know how this strange moment will ripple forward into the unknown future.

Creative interpretations of clocks can play with our ideas about the structure of time—I remember, for example, meeting someone who wore a watch with a single hand that moved around the clock face once every 24 hours. An olfactory clock, however, speaks uniquely to our *experience* of time. The idea of “9:00 pm” or “Monday” may feel irrelevant, but through our senses we can still experience the passage and structure of time.