The whole place had a very sweet aroma I couldn’t identify.

Maybe it was also something in the air. The whole place had a very sweet aroma I couldn’t identify. It was like when the odor from a factory in New Jersey that processes flavors and fragrances wafted over and made the whole city smell like maple syrup, as if everyone was gearing up for waffles and pancakes. But this scent was way better; I couldn’t identify it but I’d definitely smelled it before. Or at least smelled small traces before. It was like sniffing a rose verses walking through a flower garden. I figured the factory must have been working on something new. They were doing a hell of a job too; whatever it was, it smelled great.

I stayed until the guy was pronounced dead and they took him away. I wanted to go home, but the cops on the scene were interviewing people. One came up to me. “Could I get your name, please?”

“Morgan Stanley Green.”

He shot me the same, “Are you kidding?” look that everyone gives me when I tell them my name. “Seriously?”

“Yep. Coincidence. Morgan was my mom’s brother; he died of leukemia when he was a little kid. Stanly was my grandpa, he died right before I was born.” This was all true, so I was being sincere. Which is why I couldn’t figure out why he was giving me a really strange look when I was talking. I just chalked it up to the situation and let him move on.

“Must be a little weird,” he said, “having the same name as a bank.”

I shook my head. “Actually I think it’s pretty cool. And my friends call me MSG.”

He breathed a sigh of, “whatever, let’s get this going.” “Anyways,” he looked up at me, “Mr. Green,” went back to his pad, “Did you see what happened here?”

“Oh yeah, I saw the whole thing. That guy had the ‘Walk’ light, and he crossing the street when the car suddenly accelerated and swerved right into him. It was nasty.”

He shot me a look. “Excuse me, ‘nasty?’”

“Yeah, like, it was, just, you know, really bad. Guy’s walking home and then BAM! Up in the air, dead before he lands.”

He looked confused. “So you saw that he was dead, when, when the body was flying through the air?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “He was definitely dead on impact.”

“How could you know that?”

Something felt different. I started sniffing the air, “Oh, I could just tell.” I sniffed some more. “Hey, did you notice that smell is gone all of a sudden?”

He looked confused. “What smell?”

“That smell, that really sweet smell. It was everywhere, like the Maple Syrup Event, only way better.” Indeed, I could barely smell the scent anymore. But thinking about it made me feel a little jazzed.

He gave me a real hard look. “Have you been drinking tonight?”

“Oh, no sir. Came right from the office. Nothing but sugar and caffeine all day. Kills my stomach but trust me, I can barely stay awake without it.”

He took a look at my eyes, like he was examining for signs of drug use. “Well you seem pretty lively now.”

“Always been more of a night person.”

He took a second to process that before taking the rest of my info in case they needed to talk to me again. Before he walked away, he said, “I just gotta ask one thing. The teeth. Is that like, a Goth thing?”

This time, I gave the confused look. “What are you talking about?”

He just shook his head and moved on to the next person.