Ça s’est passé un 5 octobre : décès de la photographe Alexandra Boulat

Rachel Lloyd comforts her husband Paul after he had a flashback. He was pushing a cart through the supermarket near his home in Salt Lake City, looking for light bulbs, when he stopped to sniff a variety of scented candles on a nearby shelf. Suddenly his hands were over his face, and he sank to the floor, sobbing. One candle smelled just like the shampoo he had been using in the shower at Army basic training in 2007, when he was beaten and raped by another recruit.
“We were at the store. I was looking at some stuff and started smelling some candles and found a candle that triggered me back into a flashback. It’s similar to the scent of the shampoo I was using at the time of the assault. When it happens, you’re back there; you’re back in that little three by three square shower, cold tile and hot water and cold water running down. You feel psychologically, not just physiologically, your mind goes back to the pain at the time of the assault being thrown up against the wall multiple times, being forced to do things, forced having your jaw open. It’s hell, and there’s no escape from it,” he said. © Mary F. Calvert