The next morning I woke up, rolled over and gave my boyfriend a kiss.  He immediately inched away from me and started to gag. I thought maybe it was just my breath but he told me that the room smelt like rotting corpses. I thought that was kind of ironic because that is what I had been dreaming about. I thought maybe one of my pet rats had died but they were all alive and well. I figured I’d worry about it later after I had some coffee.  Suddenly the room smelled like coffee.  Kinda weird but I figured it was my imagination and the anticipation of my favorite beverage. I thought ‘hmmm’, eggs and bacon for breakfast would be good and then the odor from that became overwhelming. My boyfriend remarked from the other room how good the food smelled but I hadn’t started cooking yet. I knew then that something very strange had happened.

I tried for several hours to think of all of my favorite fragrances, gardenias, hyacinths, skunks… yeah, I’m weird.. so what. I was able to produce the scent of all of them perfectly. I thought of the possibilities that this new power  could have. I didn’t have to worry too much about showering every day because I could just imagine I was wearing deodorant and it was all good. I played jokes on people I didn’t like by making it seem like they had a flatulence problem, but that got old kinda quick. This ability was interesting but I certainly didn’t think it was as cool as being able to fly or to become invisible. Those were what I thought were the good powers.

That idea changed one night when I was coming home from a friends house. I was walking down the street and a van slowed down and two guys ran out at me and all I could think of was that they were going to chloroform me or something and suddenly they dropped to the ground unconscious.  I realized then that I had been limiting myself. Fragrance really IS a powerful thing.

After that I got a job working in a ‘company’. If I needed to incapacitate a whole room full of people I could imagine the most disgusting blend of  aromas and everyone would either start vomiting uncontrollably or leave the building. I could calm people down with the scent of lavender. I became very adept at controlling people just by being aware of the effect of fragrance.  I never told my old employers what had happened. This was a superpower I wanted to keep for myself. Now, whenever someone tells me I smell, I smile politely and say thank you.