There’s No Perfume
Blood will have blood, they say

ELIZABETH GEORGE
August 31, 2026

I’ve had a stressful few weeks—plus one very nice week on Prince Edward Island in Canada doing an Anne of Green Gables Wallow with an amiable and understanding Canadian girlfriend—so I’ve not had the energy to write very much about what’s going on around me. For my heart has been filled with sadness during this time, and the sadness has only increased in the days that have passed since my return.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what appears to me to be the death of America, which has always been—admittedly—a very imperfect country with a very blotted history, but at least a country that people around the world looked to for leadership, inspiration, hope, and perhaps the fulfillment of their aspirations. If that country is still alive somewhere, I am having—every day—a more and more difficult time seeing it. And all of this makes me wonder where, exactly, we are heading and what, exactly, the end game is.

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the eponymous character and his wife set upon a course the destination of which is regicide. Their desired endgame is Macbeth as king on the throne of Scotland, and, while at the start of the play, the current king, Duncan, is no spring chicken, he is also giving no sign of shedding his mortal coil anytime soon. Even if he happened to die, he has two sons, and his elder son Malcolm is his successor. In a remarkable instance of unclear thinking, the Macbeths decide to kill Duncan while he’s a guest in their home (well…in their castle), to blame the King’s servants for the crime, and somehow, as previously mentioned, to end up as King and Queen of Scotland. Macbeth does the deed, albeit not without hesitation. But he also kills the two servants who attend Duncan, and, in doing so, actually throws suspicion on himself. His nemesis in the play, Macduff, hearing that Macbeth has killed the servants after they supposedly killed the King—according to Macbeth’s version of how the evening went down—says to him “Wherefore did you so?”, giving us a glimpse into what the future is going to be like for Macbeth and his bride because Macduff has no intention of going gentle into the goodnight of Macbeth’s rule over their mutual homeland.

As happens frequently in Shakespeare, Macbeth’s comeuppance is on its way soon enough but not before he kills his pal Banquo after hearing a prophecy that Banquo’s sons will one day rule Scotland. He hasn’t expected to feel guilty about any of this killing he’s been doing. After all, early in the play, the three witches have hailed him as “king hereafter”, and if you can’t trust a prediction from three witches dancing around a caldron, who can you trust?

Eliminating people hither and non, however, begins to eat at Macbeth’s conscience. Having urged him to do what he needs to do to become king, Lady Macbeth isn’t free of the pangs of conscience either. She’s witnessed her husband falling apart in the aftermath of his criminal behavior—practically swinging from the chandelier during a state dinner when he claims to see Banquo’s ghost shaking it’s “gory locks” at him—and she’s not far behind in the guilt department. He sees ghosts. She sleepwalks. And during her nocturnal rambling about the castle hallways, she rubs her hands together obsessively and she moans that “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand” because, to her, it now smells of blood.

I’ve begun to think that this is where we are in the United States right now: sleepwalking in the direction of our doom while trying to ignore the fact that “all the perfumes of Arabia” will not clean the stench of what our government has done in the name of Donald Trump’s ignominious Presidency. We would like to believe that there will be an eventual comeuppance, not only for Donald Trump but also for everyone who has fallen into line to appease him, to fulfill whatever desire he expresses, to give fulsome lip-service to both his greatness and his leadership, to offer encomiums and specious awards and medals and trophies in order to distract him, mollify him, and allow him to feel what he is so demonstrably desperate to feel: that he is the Greatest President in the History of the County and the Greatest Leader in the World.

But what of us? That’s what I wonder. How will any perfume from any source sweeten our collective hands? For isn’t the truth that the person elected President of the United States is a representative of all of us? Isn’t it true that the disgrace he brings upon himself and the disgrace his cohorts bring upon themselves comprise our disgrace as well?

I had a conversation recently with a Millennial that I can’t shake from my mind. It was simple enough: I told him that the price of gas in Seattle—where I live—is now over $6/gallon. His response was “I don’t think about the price of gas. We drive electric cars.” It didn’t occur to him that most people do not drive electric cars because most people cannot afford electric cars. Cocooned snugly and smugly in his world—safe in his ego-centric life, ensconced in his mortgage-free house, enjoying the combined salaries of more than $200K earned by himself and his wife, living in one of the most liberal cities in his state—he need not concern himself with how people less fortunate than he are managing to survive. He shops at Whole Foods, he frequents street markets selling morning-baked breads and locally sourced cheese and vine ripened tomatoes, and everything he could possibly want that is fresh and organic. He assures himself that in buying second hand clothing for his children and used furniture for his family, he is somehow “doing his part” to make America better. But is he? Really?

When we ignore the suffering and persecution of others, who are we and, more important, who and what are we becoming? You might ask: “Well, what is he supposed to do? He’s just living his life, isn’t he?” To the first I have no answer to give. To the second, I would have to say yes. He is living his life: privileged, safe, without a single worry other than making sure his fruit trees are watered regularly. I suppose he is a living example of what was once called “the American Dream.”

But there is also an American nightmare now, and what this ageing Boomer believes is fairly simple: If we are to survive what’s now happening in this country every single day, it is going to be down to people just like Mr. Electric Car to wake up and do something besides basking in a largesse that most Americans in this very moment don’t even dare to dream might be theirs as well.

“Blood will have blood,” is one way of putting where we are today. “Karma’s a bitch,” is another.

© 2026 Elizabeth George
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104