The Christmas Eve Olfactory Terrorist Attack
By: White Feather
Tags: Christmas, Humor, Fiction, Short Story, Lifestyle

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….