The Christmas Eve Olfactory Terrorist Attack

More attacks are planned

Fridolf Garnett was an olfactory terrorist. He had been doing it since he was a teenager. His nickname back then was The Nose. Fridolf was born with a heightened olfactory sense. It was this heightened sense of smell that led Fridolf into a career as an olfactory terrorist.

It was a secret career, though. It was all done with as much secrecy as was possible. Fridolf had a normal life and he so wanted to protect that from any news stories linking him to one of his olfactory terrorist acts. He would never be able to show his face in public again should he be caught.

Fridolf was not a member of any sort of cell of terrorists. No, he acted strictly alone. He was a lone wolf terrorist. Everything was orchestrated by Fridolf and it was also executed only by him. In the many years of doing this, he never brought in an outsider. He never told his secret to anyone.

And he had never been caught.

But most of Fridolf’s olfactory terrorist acts had been rather small — not many noses affected. He had the fire pit in his backyard where he would burn exotic smells from herbs and other plants that he routinely picked on his customary daily walks but that was never enough to affect a significant amount of the town in which he lived. What he needed was an odor network; something that could impact a large number of people.

After years of planning, Fridolf committed his largest act of olfactory terrorism in his entire life. He planned for it to happen on Christmas Eve. That night, everyone in town went down to Main Street where Christmas Eve was celebrated as long as anyone could remember.

There were countless manger scenes, plenty of jolly fat men dressed as Santa, carolers with bells, pick-pockets with smiles, children binging on candy, Christians selling paper cups of warm cider, dogs wandering around, and old folk getting high on nostalgia.

That morning Fridolf had gone to Wal-Mart where he picked up six packages of Frankincense incense sticks. Each package contained twelve incense sticks so Fridolf had a total of seventy-two frankincense incense sticks. He was not sure if that was enough for his big terrorist attack.

Fridolf had drawn out on a piece of paper a map of the local downtown district. It was his neighborhood that he walked each day. He knew every shop and every shop owner. He knew the layout of everything. He knew every curve and dip of the sidewalks. He knew where every tree was with its surrounding soil into which a burning incense stick could be stuck into. He had memorized where every potted plant was on Main Street. He had checked the weather reports and was guaranteed of calm weather with only very mild occasional breezes. And the moon had just begun waning after a glorious full moon during which Fridolf had finalized his terrorist plans.

Having inadvertently found himself amidst the Christmas Eve celebrations in previous years, Fridolf realized what was so sorely lacking. It was, of course, smell.

Through experience with previous Christmas Eve celebrations in this town, Fridolf knew that activities didn’t really get going until after seven in the evening. That is when the celebration really took off.

Fridolf began his assault at around a quarter til seven. It was a cool evening which enabled Fridolf to wear his coat with the large inside pockets — all of which were full of pre-opened packages of frankincense incense. In his right hand, Fridolf carried a fuchsia Bic lighter that was brand new and therefore not likely to fail. A back-up book of matches was located in Fridolf’s left trouser pocket.

Fridolf followed the downtown map grid that he had planned on. He lit several sticks of frankincense incense at a time and then placed them in dried-out flower beds, the soil around the trees that lined Main Street, in cracks in the sidewalk, and the pots set out on the sidewalk that, up until those last few freezes contained flowers, and everywhere that he could see to stick a burning incense stick.

It took about twenty minutes to cover the entire grid of downtown. No matter which way the breeze decided to turn, the downtown area was awash with the smell of frankincense. Those seventy-two frankincense incense sticks permeated the entire downtown Christmas Eve celebration….

Sixteen-year-old Sandy McCormick was walking hand-in-hand with sixteen-year-old Bob Duffy. It was only their second date and coming on Christmas Eve only heightened the mojo. Bob was a smart, polite guy and most importantly, he was funny. Sandy thoroughly enjoyed their first date despite the fact that he never kissed her.

Will he kiss her tonight?

Sandy and Bob had walked the length of the downtown celebration area and back and now turned onto the sidewalk of a side street, headed for Bob’s dad’s car parked a block away. Halfway to the car Sandy suddenly stopped and dropped her hand from Bob’s. She held her arms out as she slowly twirled around, her eyes searching intensely for something, “What is that?”

“What?”

“That smell! I smelled it earlier downtown and now it’s like a massive cloud of it is just slowly washing over us. What is that?”

“Uh, I believe it is frankincense.”

She looked at him, “Oh?”

“Yeah, well, I used to be an altar boy. The priests would break out the frankincense for the holidays.”

“Frankincense, huh? It smells so… so… Christmasy.”

“Yeah, um, yeah, it’s always been associated with Christmas.”

“Oh yeah, the wise man thing….” She once again slowly twirled around in a circle getting a 360-degree view of a smell that could not be seen. Halfway around she spoke to the night air, “It smells so Christmasy.”

Coming full circle, Sandy was suddenly face-to-face with Bob and Bob’s face was rapidly coming towards her face. There was no time to think.

Abruptly, they were kissing. To describe the kiss would be futile. It was one of those kisses so imbued with mojo that it was forever burned into the skein of time and space. It was the kind of kiss one remembers for the rest of one’s life.

And for the rest of Sandy McCormack’s life every single solitary time she would ever catch a whiff of frankincense she would immediately think about that first kiss. Just thinking about that kiss filled her with joy. As she got older she would burn frankincense year-round. And when Bob finally died his coffin was surrounded by three dozen burning frankincense incense sticks. Some of the guests surely thought she was loony but Sandy did not care. She knew the powerful mojo of frankincense. Her life had been transformed by it.

With his arms crossed over his chest, Fridolf walked down Main Street. He excitedly felt like a criminal returning to the scene of the crime. The sticks were burning low but there were still about twenty minutes left in the olfactory attack.

Taking a deep breath of the frankincense-infused air, Fridolf looked around at all the joyous activity in the street and on the sidewalks. Everyone seemed so happy and most seemed utterly oblivious to the terrorist attack being waged upon them. He noticed a few people scrunch up their noses and look around in wonder at what might be producing the Christmasy scent.

Fridolf smiled. His olfactory terrorist act came off without a hitch. And now, walking through the crowds, he was the terrorist mixed in the crowd. There was a little high he got off of that thought.

There was no possible way Fridolf could ever know how his act may have affected anyone. Uplifting people is cool, sure, but Fridolf derived an enormous amount of pleasure from carrying out the attack. Yes, it was great to affect a large crowd of people, even if only subconsciously, but it was the mojo of the attack that he lived for.

Perhaps no one’s life was affected by being gassed with frankincense smoke. Maybe it was just a silly smell that only some took note of or even gave any thought to. At least no one was hurt. No death or violence. Fridolf wasn’t that kind of terrorist.

It was probably a good thing that Fridolf could never know how his tactical olfactory assaults affected people’s lives. This kept his mind free and clear for planning future attacks. (He was thinking of burning lavender for the assault on the annual Fourth of July celebration at the park.)

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction that originally appeared in a slightly different form with a slightly different title way back in 2017.

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