The Scent of the Blueberry -- 1

It’s amazing what you find sometimes when you tear down these old buildings. Copies of the Gutenberg Bible, garters actually worn by Madonna (not the original one), false teeth from the corpses of old NHL defensemen, a sled bearing the single word “Rosebud” – a vast and unpredictable plethora of shit. The only absolute guarantee is that it’ll never be anything useful. But I always keep hoping.

So where was I? Oh yes, I was helping to knock down this old building at the corner of Main & Broadway, and we found a sheaf of papers in one of the ventilation shafts. Personally, I’m not sure why anyone would keep a sheaf of papers there – I always thought that people kept their ventilation in ventilation shafts, but I’ve always found that life is just chock full of little surprises.

Anyway, we took a look at it, and it seemed to be written in some strange alien script – we figured maybe Klingon in its pre-transliterated state. But one of the guys identified it as scrawled French – in other words, to my way of thinking, something pretty fucking close to Klingon. The problem is that he didn’t actually know French – and the only guy on the crew who understood French didn’t speak English. To make a long story short, we wound up getting it translated from French to German to Spanish to Swahili to English. So this whole project may give new meaning to the phrase, “there was something lost in the translation.” At least it’ll make it easier to write subtitles if we ever sell the rights to an international audience – easier, that is, if at least some of the theatergoers understand Swahili. If they don’t, well, they better know one of the other languages – I’m not spending any more time on translations until someone shows me some cash.

Anyway, the following is the text of the ventilation papers. I have no idea if any of it is true. I’m only sure that none of the characters resemble anybody that I ever knew, or you ever knew either – and, if you have any kids, they definitely shouldn’t try any of this shit at home. Let ‘em try it in the schoolyard, like I did.

So go ahead and read it. If you like it, well, personally, I think that you may be just a little bit sick, but feel free to send me some money to help pay for more translations (and my current bar tab, if you want to know the truth).

P.S. No animals were harmed in the making of this novel. We did screw up a few humans but, what the hell, nobody's perfect.


You could see the falling snow silhouetted against the street lights, and Evelyn thought that it was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.

At least, that’s what she was trying to tell herself. Self-talk. Positive self-talk. That was the key to success, she told herself. The truth was that she hated the little goddamn flakes. Every one was supposed to be different but, as far as she was concerned, they were all the same. Six sides -- cold and wet. She knew that, for 15 minutes in the morning, the snow would lie like a beautiful white blanket over the landscape – and then the cars and buses and trucks would come along and turn it into varying shades of gray and black by noon. Butt ugly.