Here comes installment two! In my previous post about Imaginary Authors, I decided that for these fragrances I would do something different and write some short stories based on what comes up when I smell them. These stories are based on a vigilante concept that Mr. Chokkattu and I discuss whenever someone who’s a waste of space shows up on the news, and the style hopefully smacks of Brandon Sanderson as well as a tiny hint of Haruki Murakami perhaps. Hope you enjoy!

Cape Heartache: pine, oak, embers, strawberries, vanilla

• The strawberry is a welcome addition to what is mainly a smoky wood scent. It doesn’t evolve much, everything in it you get from the beginning; the mentholly pine, solid oak, a bit of char and smolder, and the sweet strawberries and vanilla as if someone’s making strawberry shortcake on a griddle in the forest at night. It’s rather delicious and although it doesn’t change, it’s interesting enough from the get-go, tells just enough of a story, that it doesn’t bother me. I’m a big fan of this one.

Falling Into the Sea: honeydew, grapefruit, orange, suntan oil, kelp

• It’s a very fruity drink held by an oiled up shore visitor, mostly attractive, but perhaps not the most attractive. Still, their feet are covered with the white sand of resort-side ground and their hands have touched the little mussels that bury themselves along the shoreline and their hair has a sun-warmed quality and their skin hasn’t gotten sunburned yet. I think accompanying Falling Into the Sea with the scent of an actual sea will round it out; I haven’t found a scent yet that has really captured the briny, kelpy essence of the shore I grew up with.

Cape Heartache

She chose a strawberry out of a pallet and bit in, splashing the corner of a letter on a teak desk full of papers. Swearing, she pulled the envelope out and a handkerchief to clean it. Her eyes scanned the address on the front.

Leonel *****
82 Scodram Way
LONDON
EC1Y 8SY
UNITED KINGDOM
Postmark: 8th of March, 1879

It has been a while since we have spoken. I am alive and I have nothing but questions. You don’t have to write back.

Yours,
Leo

She had forgotten if she had ever answered him, whether by this second passed year, he has forgotten about her the way that she had nearly forgotten about him. She tucked the little message away and finished her strawberries, back to the work at hand.

Falling Into the Sea

Noticing the waves getting larger, Orion sighed and walked away from the water’s edge and made his way towards the kitschy tiki bar on the South Beach front. Umbrellas of a handful of colors littered the sand in big stripes, delineating the crap hotels from the resorts. Orion didn’t belong to either of those categories, but his white polo and khakis made him rather indistinguishable from the tourists.

He found a seat close to the edge of the bar and willed himself to be left alone. Not more than a few minutes later, the bartender put a pink drink in front of him and simply said, “from the lady.” The lady in question observed him from under dark sunglasses and moved towards him.

He eyed the drink suspiciously and felt his gun in its holster, but was distracted as she quickly plunged her head into his neck, tongue in the hollows, a hand around his waist; a tiny needle into his bare arm. He drew back in shock and scowled at her wicked grin, furious that he had been taken advantage of and wondering what she had just done to him. He quickly pulled her aside under the pretense of conquest and whispered into her ear that he was going to have her arrested and thrown into jail.

“No, Orion, I think you and I are going to a hotel and make sure the serum inside of you dissolves your tracker, and then I can answer some questions if that’s what you really want.”