Ok, these theories require me to spoil the entire thing so bear with me.
So this story is basically about a girl called Eurydice who had a compulsive habit of lying and a peculiar smell, similar to the one of rotten oranges (that's why the name "the unbearable smell of oranges").
Basically, the plot is about the relationship between Eurydice and the protagonist and the reason behind Eurydice's scent.
Near the end this happens:
As years passed by, Eurydice’s starchy whiteness started to become more spectral, and her body acquired more translucent properties. Her coal-black hair had grown so much it dragged like the tail of a dress, and when she bent her head to kiss me, I felt like a black rain poured on me. Her sentences didn’t even make sense anymore, and sometimes she would call me by strangers’ names.
She didn’t even remember who she was anymore. Sometimes Eurydice would stay still looking at something that didn’t quite exist. She was tired, a Quijote tired of hunting imaginary giants and offering love poems to Dulcineas.
And just like that, she stopped existing…
…. if she ever existed.
I intended to make this sort of a metaphor of Eurydice forgetting who she was in reality after lying so much for such a long period of time (or something like that, I know this sounds really pretentious), but when the time came to adapt this into comic format I knew I had to take my own descriptions more literally.
This, plus the conclusion to the story, made a lot of people think that either think Eurydice was either a figment of the imagination of the protagonist or a ghost; which it's hella cool!
When she was gone, I started repeatedly reading the badly written book that I read to her the day of my return to the house. Always the same story, always the same place. And just like that, one day I again felt Eurydice’s scent now merged together with the scent of the house. I felt the weight of another person in the hammock, but I didn’t care to see who it was as it is useless to talk with those who have already left.
Just then I understood that Eurydice’s scent was the perfume that loneliness wears.
Here are some of my favorite theories!
If you happen to be one of the commentators above I just wanted to say that you're really cool and thanks for reading my sloppy-acid trip-horror story.
If this sounds interesting to you, or you want to get to your own conclusions here's the complete comic:
