I am a Secret Brain Agent. You may not address me by name.
     By smell-message this morning I was alerted to the case! It is won-
derful to have a case. My own brain is active at all times.
     The case was that troubleshooters in the left-hand province had
failed to secure a renegade, and they wanted me on the case. In smell-code
'renegade', 'mendicant' and 'stoolpigeon' are all the same; however, I
used my suspicion to determine which one was meant.
     We squelch a lot of rumors at the Secret Brain Agency. Hairbrushes are
better than combs. Enemies can get you if you wear their favorite color.
Government cats have more legs than your usual cats. Things like that. None
of those are true.
     My contacts in the significant province alerted me to a scene. Two
women and one man wearing Agency red were dead and obstructing traffic at
a well-known intersection. On my way there I stopped by the one large
fault-line in our external defenses, maintained for sentimental reasons. No
other agency would dare attack through it.
     I smelled the intersection people for names. They had none. Had a rene-
gade killed three Agents? Or killed three fake Agents and disguised them?
Or killed three real Agents but disguised them as other Agents still living
so that we would not account for them correctly?
     Once, I was assigned to the ocean for a week. Servants spoon-feed you
and whisper to you that you will have a case soon. Then they spin you
around overhead in a machine while a voice shouts, "We all go around the
sun!" It is an excellent punishment, but I do not like being punished.
     The left-hand province has many propagandists. I asked one if he had
smelled or thought anything unusual. He shrugged and gave me a handbill.
One side consisted of politics, so I used the other, blank side to jot down
my impressions. The case was lukewarm. I sent off some flavonoids to ask
the Agency for a different case instead, and they said yes.
     My new case was to remain in the same province and account for every
book dealer. That was no trouble. Hours later, my contacts contacted me as
I was accounting for the final dealer, who specialized in animal books.
Before I could leave he pressed a ticket for an anteater into my hand. "I
know the Agency is good for it," he said. I did not believe at the time
that the Agency needed more anteaters.
     My contacts said I had gotten all the stationary book dealers, but
missed a wandering one. This one was eager to be accounted for, so he would
meet me down by the flawed defenses. My contacts said all that, to which I
assented.

     On my arrival I detected with all senses a lazy-eyed old man tugging
two book carts behind him. Given such a wide choice I selected the longest
book; I was barely on a case anymore, having mostly accounted for him with
my left hand as he drew near, so I needed a way to spend my time. "That's
a good one," he said; "It goes around the sun." What? Was I to be repri-
manded again, and for nothing? The man sneered and stepped aside. Then came
more Agents to handle me, and some Agents to watch them, and several gov-
ernment cats. Disillusioned, I watched the cats during the whole process;
it is quite attractive how they bounce along, all legs stiffly extended and
striking the ground at once. Of course, they only have so many legs. Four.

written for Molly Tomlinson in my living room 7/9/02

I totally panicked when I saw the words. I couldn't form them into anything in my mind, so I started off with a jumpy, thick style. I don't exactly think I got away with it, but I find on re-reading (this is another one I'm typing in a week and a half later) that there are several good points to this story.

For one thing, I feel like I was able to set up several little bits without telegraphing their reoccurrence. For another, 'smell' is inherently goofy but (perhaps I flatter myself) I think I brought out its other aspects. And as obtrusive as the Agent's awkwardness is, I think there's a coherent vibe to how he functions: he's someone to whom a lot of "normal" mental processes are external but who has practiced them so much (in that secret agent way) that they're second nature, which is pretty good except to us humans for whom they're first nature. It's suggested that the whole Brain agency works that way and in fact maybe the whole world. (I was building on this lumpily with the fact that the dealer sells a reference-to-an-anteater rather than a real animal, and the designation of a geographical area as "left-hand".) I wanted to do more with the idea of a city/nation/whatever leaving themselves slightly vulnerable for symbolic reasons. I mean, I realized I hadn't done much more with that than to say it (and perhaps not clearly) so I didn't make it matter to the story. Still.

There are three different possible subtexts to the plot, depending on what the correct interpretation of the original smell-message was. I was not too surgical about that, so in case 3 it's unclear who the stoolpigeon is -- either the propagandist or the Agent's contacts.

Even after all the flailing (which, like I said, was meant to compensate for a difficult bunch of words) I ended up stretching several of the words. 'Disseminate': that's what the handbills are for. 'Blind luck': can blind luck be blind BAD luck? Hm. I had to look up 'flavonoids' (certain aromatic compounds) and 'amblyopic' (lazy-eyed) but was unduly proud of knowing 'pronk' (the pogo-stick gait of the government cats, occasionally observed in gazelles).

I feel like, whether or not this one was done well, it's how I want to write: the archness and peculiarity are neither extraneous nor the only point; they are how the reader is acquainted with the terms of the story. I like concealing things, but the thought of making readers 'decode' drives me nuts. (While I like Ulysses, it bothers me that it's seemingly a decorative layer atop a set of real-world events. With Finnegans Wake one can make the case that Joyce tries instead to drive dream-logic into the most analytical, verbal part of the mind and in so doing frees himself a little from the yoke of 'what REALLY happened'. But maybe not.)

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

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