Scent

If those others are not, then what is the dominant sense in the Home?

Strangely, I think it is scent. You smell things. You return to those first origins of life, when chemical sensitivity was all-important. When molecules and olfactory receptors defined perception. And communication. With their own grammar and poetry.

It is not all good. Very little of it is sweet or mellow. You detect…cleaners, harsh and abrasive, bland food on the trays being taken on carts to those patients who can sit and eat; medical smells, disinfectants, the electronic-hot-metal odor of clinical machines; very few perfumes or personal scents unless they're on the skins of visitors; and, most of all…

Urine.

It is not that the place is unclean. No. It is very, very clean. But urine is a powerful scent. And the Foley catheter is not a perfect technology. (Note to transhumanists and others who long for the blending of man and machine, partisans of cyborg and superhuman, there is much remaining undone, long miles to be traversed 'tween here and your utopia.).

And so, as you walk past a patient or a patient's room, you will detect urine. Sometimes, too, feces, if they are having a bowel movement.

You get used to it. You don't think you could, but you do. And if you are of a certain mental bent there is something instructive in it. Almost comforting. For, you see, these are also the scents of the nursery. Of the maternity ward. Cycle of life, etc. I'm sorry if that strikes you as platitudinous. Perhaps it is. But it is also true. And inescapable.

Besides, it is humbling. We go from ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and from uric acid and methane to uric acid and methane. Even the most remarkable among us comes, in time, to here. The most powerful, the most arrogant, the most supercilious, the most talented …here. Here and nowhere else.

Oh ye mighty. Sniff upon these works and despair.

Or, better, learn modesty. And so wisdom.