Once upon a time there was an ecstatically happy couple named Bitrate and Sorma, who lived in the town of Ringbear near Norma. The town made a sound like a hub cap going round and round a banister not far from the stairs. Everyone who lived there was ecstatically happy, except for one young man, who was positively orgasmic.

The townspeople had been
so unbearably happy for so incredibly long
that they had literally forgotten
what it was like for life to go wrong.
They had completely forgotten what it was like
to eat too much ice cream too fast, or to crash on a bike.
To hit your funny bone on the oven, or to end up with a scar,
or to slam your tongue in the trunk of a car.
But unlike those ungrateful bastards over in Karam,
who forgot they were happy until snails ate the dam,
and the people were eaten by goats who came down from the hills,
and instead of water it rained three-dollar bills,
the people of Ringbear fully appreciated how good they had it.
That's why they were especially displeased
with Bitrate and Sorma
when everything went to shit.

One bright autumn day, on the sixth of September,
almost two months before the sixth of November,
Bitrate and Sorma had the wonderful idea.

The only way, they figured, that they could be merrier,
was if there were more of them (and not just the terrier).
So they set out to have a child.
They tried many ways, would attempt many angles,
until the winner one night was "The Swedish Dangle",
a position which yielded six kings and a pope,
and the man who invented soap on a rope.
This was in the past, of course, not in Sorma's womb,
for in there grew only a small boy named Joom,
and needless to say he quite liked the room.

On the day Joom was born, Bitrate gave him flowers,
which he'd been arranging for seventeen hours.
"Welcome, my son!" he shouted and then,
brandished the bouquet like a cornish game hen.
But the boy did not smile, the boy did not laugh,
the boy did not call for a doctor on staff,
the boy merely cried a quite Joom-like cry,
while flailing his feetlings and rubbing his eyes.

I think I need not tell you Bitrate was taken aback,
not unlike an explorer-cum-alligator-snack,
to have the bouquet he'd so nicely erected,
to have it so coldly and flatly rejected.

That's when he shouted: "You ungrateful young shit!
While I am out working, in diapers you sit!
You could have at least practiced, in all those wombed hours,
pretending just once that you liked my flowers!"
Bitrate stormed out and he made quite a scene,
vowing to speak not to Joom 'til he was seventeen.

And would you believe for a second, if I were to tell,
that Joom grew up to be… The Boy Who Could Not Smell?
I didn't think so, but check the records, it's true.
Shitting is not what I'm doing to you.

Joom was normal sized (this is not that old story),
and I assure you quite frankly the ending's less gory.
He just couldn't smell, couldn't sniff, couldn't snort,
any fine odors of any old sort.
Not roses, not coffee, not sail boats, not skunks.
Joom would pass over an army of drunks,
untouched by their stench, and he needed a tutor
to even turn on the smell-o-computer.

The townsfolk, once kind, were helplessly amused,
they often dropped Joom in manure while he snoozed.
They really got mean, some would call it cruel,
and that's not even counting the kids at the school.
They were the meanest by far,
it was really no contest, they locked him in a car.
They filled it with sauerkraut, and stinkbombs and fish,
they topped it with sulphur and said "Mmmm… delish!"
They tortured him in math class, and English and Arts.
They locked him in the coat closet with the fat boy who farts.
But even through all this, Joom could not smell.
This egged them on further, they threw him down a well
filled with pickles and pillbugs and rot,
they even threw down one burnt tater tot.
But was no use, Joom's nose was no tool,
and this just made the townsfolk more evil and cruel.

And this was their downfall, the town fell to waste,
as the people grew bitter and ate nothing but paste
and stale Easter eggs and mountains of beans,
and more nasty things than you've ever seen.
They seldom went out, and none went to work,
they sat at home and cursed that little no-smelling jerk
and plotted at ways of making a stench so thick,
that Joom would smell it at last, and it would make him sick.

They never got their chance. In a happier story,
one that was all filled up with morals and glory,
Joom would make friends and prove he could do other things well,
even if he was The Boy Who Could Not Smell.
That people are people, regardless of beauty or girth,
and that one's nose is hardly the extent of one's worth.
But there was a gas leak in the classroom one bright autumn day,
and all the children who smelled it ran so far away,
except for small Joom who just withered away.

Sorry.

º Last Column: The Boy No Bigger Than a Claritin Pill
º more columns