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Notes11/01/2019
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Meggi
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32
Commissioner Olfattke takes a time-out
First Chapter - By the Sea
"What are you doing?"
Bertram Olfattke twitched. The voice had ripped him from distant memories of vacation in the mountains. He looked up and saw a boy, perhaps eight years old, standing next to the bench with a dark blue child's bicycle between his legs. Behind him, a somewhat younger girl looked over, holding the handle of a scooter and pushing the vehicle back and forth with her right foot - as if she wasn't sure whether to flee right away. However, the two seemed to have no fear, rather Olfattke had the impression to have become an involuntary object of a kind of test of courage.
It wouldn't be a miracle if they'd chosen him for it. He simply had to look cranky as he sat there in his faded jacket in the sun, while the beach-goers in light, summery clothes strolled along the Laboer Promenade everywhere.
"What are you doing?", the boy repeated his question and the girl, now apparently convinced that there was no immediate danger, replied the boy.
"I sniff. After all, I am a snoop."
That was true. Both. Although, of course, the pun was unfair. In fact, he was about to try a scent. He had found it fitting to take two samples of sea scents with him. They would have to face the direct comparison with the Baltic Sea. Then it was at least useful to something that the police psychologist had coerced him into this vacation. She had been working on him for months...
At least with today's work of art there wasn't much going on at sea. The stuff had knocked a warm-sweet-sweetish opening around his nose, close to baking aroma-over-sweet peaks. Unfortunately, the pompous flowering of lily of the valley fit all too well into it. A diffuse sea note was quickly followed, which, together with sweetness, would at best simulate psychedelic sunbathing on a soft-focus beach. The allegedly contained straw flower was either heroic or a played joke. With a lot of good will, you could think of something like spicy hay. Alpine meadow hay, as in the Berchtesgadener Land at that time, holidays with his parents. It was more than half a century ago that he had just calculated discontentedly. Mannomann... And into this consideration the boy had burst with his question.
With difficulty, Olfattke managed to stay serious when he saw two pairs of eyes suddenly get bigger. Behind it was certainly just a head cinema in the style of an absurd play on the subject of "snoopers". However, his secret joy quickly gave way to another, strange feeling. Surprised, he noticed that he liked the unbiased curiosity of the children. Confidence arousing.
"I'm a cop. Criminal Investigation. And they call us snoopers sometimes. That has nothing to do with snooping. I'm testing a perfume."
The eyes might have got bigger. If it is, because it is, Olfattke thought, he picked out a business card, sprayed it briefly and held it out to the two of them. They sniffed carefully - and curled their lips. Aha, a case of 'Kindermund tut Wahrheit kund' the commissioner happily stated, took the card back and threw it into a trash can.
Several seconds of tense silence passed before it dawned on him that the mere reference to a strange hobby could not satisfy a child's thirst for knowledge.
Correct.
"Do you catch criminals?" she bubbled out of the girl.
"Yeah. Just not now. Now I'm on vacation."
"And why don't you go to the beach? Everybody go to the beach!"
Olfattke hesitated with the answer. But why not?
"Actually, I don't like the beach very much. A doctor told me I should drive up here sometime. Because some time ago, a colleague of mine... died. And that wouldn't have happened if we had arrested that...criminal right now. That's not a nice memory."
Half an hour and many, many questions and cautious explanations later he watched Jan and Lena in a daring slalom winding their way home between the walkers to arrive in time for lunch.
On that day, the Commissioner sat quietly on his bench for a long time, deep in thought. Only casually did he follow how a brackish artificial-woody impression gradually transformed his test candidate into a lustful and harmless diffuse-sweetish-creamy, algae-floral mixture. If that was the smell of the South Pacific, no one had to fly halfway around the world for that
Finally he got up, a little stiff in his back and made his way to his small pension. The prospect of the innkeeper's clucky, clucky babbling made him sigh inwardly. He would say goodbye to his room early and read until deep into the night.
------------------------<<font color="#ffff00">-==- proudly presents
The remaining chapters:
2. Zoologist, Bat (follows)
3. Profumum Roma, Acqua di Sale (coming soon)
"What are you doing?"
Bertram Olfattke twitched. The voice had ripped him from distant memories of vacation in the mountains. He looked up and saw a boy, perhaps eight years old, standing next to the bench with a dark blue child's bicycle between his legs. Behind him, a somewhat younger girl looked over, holding the handle of a scooter and pushing the vehicle back and forth with her right foot - as if she wasn't sure whether to flee right away. However, the two seemed to have no fear, rather Olfattke had the impression to have become an involuntary object of a kind of test of courage.
It wouldn't be a miracle if they'd chosen him for it. He simply had to look cranky as he sat there in his faded jacket in the sun, while the beach-goers in light, summery clothes strolled along the Laboer Promenade everywhere.
"What are you doing?", the boy repeated his question and the girl, now apparently convinced that there was no immediate danger, replied the boy.
"I sniff. After all, I am a snoop."
That was true. Both. Although, of course, the pun was unfair. In fact, he was about to try a scent. He had found it fitting to take two samples of sea scents with him. They would have to face the direct comparison with the Baltic Sea. Then it was at least useful to something that the police psychologist had coerced him into this vacation. She had been working on him for months...
At least with today's work of art there wasn't much going on at sea. The stuff had knocked a warm-sweet-sweetish opening around his nose, close to baking aroma-over-sweet peaks. Unfortunately, the pompous flowering of lily of the valley fit all too well into it. A diffuse sea note was quickly followed, which, together with sweetness, would at best simulate psychedelic sunbathing on a soft-focus beach. The allegedly contained straw flower was either heroic or a played joke. With a lot of good will, you could think of something like spicy hay. Alpine meadow hay, as in the Berchtesgadener Land at that time, holidays with his parents. It was more than half a century ago that he had just calculated discontentedly. Mannomann... And into this consideration the boy had burst with his question.
With difficulty, Olfattke managed to stay serious when he saw two pairs of eyes suddenly get bigger. Behind it was certainly just a head cinema in the style of an absurd play on the subject of "snoopers". However, his secret joy quickly gave way to another, strange feeling. Surprised, he noticed that he liked the unbiased curiosity of the children. Confidence arousing.
"I'm a cop. Criminal Investigation. And they call us snoopers sometimes. That has nothing to do with snooping. I'm testing a perfume."
The eyes might have got bigger. If it is, because it is, Olfattke thought, he picked out a business card, sprayed it briefly and held it out to the two of them. They sniffed carefully - and curled their lips. Aha, a case of 'Kindermund tut Wahrheit kund' the commissioner happily stated, took the card back and threw it into a trash can.
Several seconds of tense silence passed before it dawned on him that the mere reference to a strange hobby could not satisfy a child's thirst for knowledge.
Correct.
"Do you catch criminals?" she bubbled out of the girl.
"Yeah. Just not now. Now I'm on vacation."
"And why don't you go to the beach? Everybody go to the beach!"
Olfattke hesitated with the answer. But why not?
"Actually, I don't like the beach very much. A doctor told me I should drive up here sometime. Because some time ago, a colleague of mine... died. And that wouldn't have happened if we had arrested that...criminal right now. That's not a nice memory."
Half an hour and many, many questions and cautious explanations later he watched Jan and Lena in a daring slalom winding their way home between the walkers to arrive in time for lunch.
On that day, the Commissioner sat quietly on his bench for a long time, deep in thought. Only casually did he follow how a brackish artificial-woody impression gradually transformed his test candidate into a lustful and harmless diffuse-sweetish-creamy, algae-floral mixture. If that was the smell of the South Pacific, no one had to fly halfway around the world for that
Finally he got up, a little stiff in his back and made his way to his small pension. The prospect of the innkeeper's clucky, clucky babbling made him sigh inwardly. He would say goodbye to his room early and read until deep into the night.
------------------------<<font color="#ffff00">-==- proudly presents
The remaining chapters:
2. Zoologist, Bat (follows)
3. Profumum Roma, Acqua di Sale (coming soon)
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