the last book I ever read (Olga Ravn's The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century, excerpt two)

from The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken:

STATEMENT 027

My research has led me to the conclusion that the best way of establishing contact with the objects is through smell. So I chew bay leaves when I’m in there with them. I’ve made several scientific advances by means of this technique, which has encouraged several of the objects to respond to my approaches by emitting a smell in return. Each object has a distinctive, and dare I say, personal smell at its center, and the object guards it the way a hand might clutch a pearl.