dogeeseseegod

The Odor of Sanctity

Ben Nardolilli

People began to notice the smell in the morning. All through the city, it was the same sensation. The smell carried nodes of herbs, yeast, garlic, and also sugar. Some detected hints of apricot. Nearly everyone felt it had a greasy texture when it reached their noses. At first, they thought it was something temporary, coming off a dumpster, a passing truck, a nearby vent, or the breath from a partner or colleague.

One thing everyone quickly discovered was that the smell had the same strength wherever they went. It was not stronger by a window or door, it was not weaker when they all went outside. The smell continued to hang around them. Noticeable but never overwhelming. It did not make anybody cough and failed to cover up other smells in the city. These were still able to get through. Bad breath, fresh cookies, armpits, car exhaust, roses, and garbage continued to register in people’s nostrils.

As the day progressed and people came into contact with one another at work, school, or shopping, they began to discuss the smell. There was relief as people realized they were not alone in smelling it. As the conversations continued, people agreed that it was mild and only slightly disagreeable. They all wondered where it could be coming from. Did a bakery catch fire? Did a food lab leak? Did a train carrying a strange assortment of cargo derail? 

More scientifically minded individuals reasoned further. It was entirely possible that while the odor smelled like familiar foodstuffs, it could have a completely different source. Something non-edible. These individuals went online and traded their knowledge of chemicals and compounds with one another. A hypothetical consensus began to emerge. Maybe it was arsine, since it too was garlicky. 

This theory alarmed the authorities. It implied high levels of arsenic in the air. They convened a committee of meteorologists and chemists to study the problem. The team used machines to detect what was floating in the city’s air. To their relief, there was no arsenic. At least, not in any amount greater than normal. That was about all the group could say with certainty. They acknowledged the possibility of an unfamiliar substance causing the smell. It might be made of similar elements already present in the air, but combined in a new way. Whether its origins were natural or synthetic remained a mystery. 

The city’s ear, nose, and throat hospital formed a task force to study the issue. A psychiatrist was brought in to round out the group. One of the problems they ran into was the lack of a control. There were no people they could find who were capable of smell and yet could not pick up on the scent hovering in the air. Despite this, they brought people in for brain scans and looked at what was going on when they detected the smell.  

The data showed people were in fact smelling something outside of themselves. It was not a collective hallucination, or the result of any kind of head trauma. The psychiatrist formed a sub-committee with several sociologists and they examined recent news articles, and the rates for wages, crime, drug use, and divorce. They wanted to see if social stressors were on the rise. It could point to the smell being a mass psychogenic illness. A response to pressure and a desire for escape. The data and headlines they collected showed no aberration in this regard. 

After a week, the public works and public sanitation departments got their chance to create a commission. Their first task was to compile a list of every known pipeline, standpipe, smokestack, and reservoir in the city. Once it was complete, they sent out teams of inspectors. They examined surfaces, joints, gaskets, and valves for leaks. 

Occasionally their search led them onto private property. The inspectors carried warrants and other legal paperwork in case anyone stopped them to ask who they were. But not everyone was willing to take a moment to do that. Dogs were sicced and guns drawn. No one was hurt though one intern broke a leg while fleeing. Another developed tetanus from an irate denizen firing a warning shot. 

The commission poured over their findings and finalized the survey.  It turned out there were plenty of holes, fissures, and apertures that needed to be repaired. The public works and public sanitation departments were ready to fix them all. They presented a bill to the city council and waited for the funding to be approved. When the mayor asked them if any of the particular leaks was behind the smell, the commission withdrew the request.

The cost of the repairs brought a group of local economists together. As a panel, they studied all the available data about the smell. They noticed an increase in the sale of scented candles, potpourri, and clothespins. The body released a report which summarized the issue and their recommendation. According to them, the best thing was to do nothing. The smell was not deadly. It was liable to blow away, and if it did not, olfactory fatigue would make it seem as if it did. In the meantime, markets would adjust to provide relief.

A month later, the smell remained and people still noticed it. It was compared to an itchy tag on the back of a shirt, or a piece of food stuck between everyone’s teeth. By this point, the panel had disbanded, as had most of the other groups assembled to study the issue. It was up to individual engineers and amateur inventors to solve the problem of the phantom odor. 

Every day, another tinkerer would show up at city hall. They would excitedly claim they had the solution for the smell. Not its origins, those were irrelevant. What mattered was a way to get rid of it, and they all knew just the thing to make it happen. One engineer built a giant fan on the shore. It only moved the odor in a circle. Another filled trucks with baking soda and drove them around the city. They failed to absorb it at all.  

An engineer from two towns over received approval to charter a blimp and drop bomb-shaped pieces of charcoal over the city. The day of his flight, the mayor and city council came out to cut the ribbon that tethered the blimp to the ground. Once it was sliced, the lighter-than-air craft rose, with the tinkerer inside it. A crowd gathered to watch and they cheered until the blimp went over the city limits and past the horizon. It was never seen again.

Citizens began to form ad hoc committees of neighbors or co-workers. They held impromptu meetings to discuss the issue and figure out what to do about the smell. Their response began with letter writing campaigns. This only resulted in more letters coming back from the government. There were petitions and demonstrations as well. Eventually, they turned to vigilantism. It was a dangerous method, but it promised to make a difference.

They targeted anything that used large amounts of garlic. Italian restaurants were shut down. A tomato sauce factory was attacked. Aioli was de facto banned. But garlic was not the only scent embedded in the odor. The yeasty elements of the smell led to bakery ovens being smashed. Meanwhile, the discovery of herbs and apricots at a farmer’s market nearly led to a riot. 

The ad hoc committees became a permanent fixture of the city’s political life. They interrupted board meetings and bogged down business at city hall. One of them tried to get rid of the city’s homeless until the homeless formed a committee of their own and fought back. Desperate for peace, the mayor called for a gathering of the city’s spiritual leaders to discuss the matter. 

They were too busy, but passed on the names of local theologians to consult.  The mayor invited them to come to city hall and form a synod. They agreed and came wearing various forms of religious regalia. All the major faiths and denominations were represented. The mayor urged the group to forget its schisms and the bad blood over debates on transubstantiation. The city was desperate. It needed answers. 

The theologians agreed to help. On his way out, the mayor locked them in their conference room. The synod was now a conclave too. Through the evening, they examined the issue at hand. They pondered, pontificated, prodded, and pleaded. When they were hungry, the mayor used a rudimentary pulley system to deliver them pizzas through a window. Once they were full, the theologians began speculating again.

After three days, they dropped a message using the same pulley system. It was received by the mayor and the city council down below. The paper was prematurely aged and rolled up like a scroll. Its shape was held in place with a wax seal. None of the group paused to wonder how the theologians made it. They only wanted an answer to share with the city and put them at ease.

Reporters and curious citizens also joined in the fray. The mayor broke the seal, got on top of a bus, and read from the scroll. The synod understood that the city was perplexed by the smell. They too had tried to figure out how to best deal with it. Instead of evaluating what made it up, or how to get rid of it, the synod took another approach. The greater “why” behind the odor was their main concern. 

It was clear that everyone capable of smell could detect it. It was also impossible to ignore. The scent had no natural origin though, or one that was readily available. Considering these facts, the synod came to the conclusion that what they were smelling was a higher power. Because of the diversity of the group, they could not agree what to name it. God? Brahma? Ahura Mazda? The only term acceptable for them was the “smelled unsmeller.”

What was the city sniffing? The very substance of the divine. Was it a truly strange idea? Only at first. The synod asked the citizens to consider how often incense and other scents appeared in rituals around the world. Maybe instead of imagining frankincense as a stand-in for the holy spirit, now they knew its true smell.

The scroll concluded on an optimistic note. The odor of the smelled unsmeller, while noticeable, was not toxic. It also was not the odor produced out of decay. The scent pointed to life. Whatever the smelled unsmeller was, it was not dead or in the process of dying. The synod urged the people of the city to forget their anger over the odor. To rejoice over having smelled it. The smell was a precious gift, the easiest proof ever assembled by and for the divine. It might not be as grand as using mathematics or encountering the moral law, but it would do. 

An amen came up from the people. The mayor was startled by the response. Then he led the crowd in another round of saying it. Clothespins and masks fell to the ground. People started looking for empty bottles to contain the smell in case it ever faded away. All around the city, nostrils flared with pride.

In the midst of this jubilation, the theologians sent down a second piece of paper. This one was plain white and had no seal. The crowd assembled again to hear what it had to say. The mayor read it out loud in a great booming voice. The synod just wanted to know if their door could be unlocked.