NEW YORK – FEAR (OL)FACTORY

While browsing a chemical supply catalog I stumbled upon a line of products that mimic the scent of illegal drugs for the purpose of training narcotic sniffing dogs. The powders smell indistinguishable from heroin, cocaine, LSD, etc.

At first I thought this would be a kooky gag—a white powder that smells exactly like blow—but then I realized that not only was the company selling powders to train drug sniffing dogs, it also had powders to train corpse sniffing dogs. I couldn’t resist one chemical called “drowned victim scent.” I immediately bought a bottle of it along with their heroin scent. Little did the chemical company know I had devised a plan foul beyond their wildest nightmares.

This Halloween I’m dressing up as the smell of a corpse, an outfit so terrifying that even the blind (smug champions of Halloween) will hold their noses in dread. I will stagger across the streets of New York in plain clothes filling the nostrils of Halloweeners with abject fear.

After the two scents arrived, I sniffed the “heroin” and it does in fact smell like heroin (vinegary), so I convinced my friend Sam who was going to be Tom Arnold to dress up as the smell of heroin instead. The corpse scent remains unopened. I’m waiting for the sun to set on the eve of Halloween to break this sealed malevolence. Till then it lurks deep in my freezer, in a fortress of ice cube trays, shrouded by whips of smoke.

HAMILTON MORRIS