Pierre the Perfume Tester

Pierre has a nosebridge like the hump of a camel. His nostrils, attractive cylinders which give the organ an aquatic aesthetic, would look large on any other face. On his they only accentuate the massiveness of the rest of the nose.

He sits on a high-backed, velvet-cushioned chair without armrests. It is a small room, and the chair is the only piece of furniture. A yellow paisley pattern covers the walls and there are no windows. He is dressed sharply and his chest swells slightly as he breathes.

A door is opened and the scientist pushes a simple steel cart laden with rows of corked test tubes. The tubes contain liquids in a variety of shades, mostly amber.

He pulls a notepad from the pocket of his lab coat and hands it to the well-dressed man, who has his own pen.

Silently, the scientist lifts one of the vials and, uncorking it, hands it to Pierre. Pierre draws the object to his heroic nose and sniffs it, just once.

He takes a moment to scribble some thoughts on the notepad, then sniffs the potion again.

He holds his breath almost a full minute, wearing the expression of someone starting to remember something. Then, exhaling, he writes some more. He returns the test tube to the scientist, who sets it aside and begins to uncork another.

“Passion,” says Pierre suddenly, “is the perfume of life.”

Fernando the Fry Cook

Fernando sticks two fingers into the slit he’s made with the serrated knife and scoops out the pink meat in clumps which stick to his fingers.

“What? This is good meat here. You can taste, see---it won’t hurt you...” he sucks a grape-sized piece of raw pork sausage onto his broad lips, and with a lick of his tongue like a coral eel zipping out of its hole and then quickly back in, the morsel disappears.

“Listen, if you’re gonna stand there with your Little-Miss-Shits-Roses attitude, I’d just as soon you get lost. I’ve got to brown these sausage crumbles and stick them in the freezer before I can clock out. 6:30 a.m., people want their eggs & sausage.”

Dollops of the gristly meat sizzle madly when Fernando drops them into the warmed oil. As he pushes them around the griddle they transform into sweaty, grayish-brown clumps.

“Ya see, I believe people should be at peace with their food, their bodies, their bodily functions, yaknowhatImean? Like this pig I’m cookin’ here, he’s not so different from me. When he was alive, he ate and shat and slept just like I do. And then somebody killed him, and all his shitting and eating days were over.”

As Fernando orates he makes chopping motions with his spatula, as if he were holding an extension of the knife that bled the animal, the cleaver that butchered it, the grinder that sausaged it.

“Now I just ate some of this pig. Later I’m going to shit him out. Rinse, lather, repeat...and then eventually I die. After that they can throw me in the pig trough for all I care. Ha!”

Sealing the last of the crumbles in its Tupperware, Fernando pulls a hairy forearm across his sweaty forehead.

“There’s one thing I’ll tell ya. Whatever ya do, you gotta be at peace with yourself.”