Puderperle

I wanted so much to write a review dripping with melancholy and poetry. Trembling glowing piglets that turn mossy ground into googly-eyed thingamabobs with a veil of smoke and rain down sad sugar. A text that brings tears to the eyes of moved readers and gives comfort to lonely hearts.
But it doesn't work. I just can't do it. Someone always dies in the end. The protagonist, the perfume itself or me.
So to minimize the risk of a funeral, it's just going to be funny again.

Instant Magic reminds me of the village doctor's chubby little daughter. She was the youngest offspring of the House of Guerlain, a family with tradition and a good reputation.
In the doctor's surgery, patients were allowed to admire gold-framed family pictures with lots of "aaahs" and "ooohs". Neatly parted boys in finely starched shirts with sweaters and radiant girls in bright frilly dresses, all arranged like organ pipes. Bliss. Toothpaste smiles. Picture book.

He was particularly proud of his little nestling. Scribbles of a three-year-old child's hand adorned the practice wall next to his computer. Almost like an altar. The person in the paintings depicted the father without a neck, but with feet protruding from his head. A medical accident, so to speak.

The artist was a latecomer. She was born when it was already said that the mother could no longer have children. In other words, a miracle. The child was therefore affectionately called Magic. The little magic fairy was spoiled accordingly.
The older twin sisters, who uniformly called themselves Insolence, had become extraordinarily popular thanks to their intelligence and beauty. Gentlemen queued up to take the young, lovely ladies with the violet-blue eyes out. The good reputation of the famous surname preceded them.
Of course, there was no question that the little prodigy had to follow in the same footsteps. Piano and ballet lessons were compulsory. So the whole Guerlain family gathered in great excitement in the town's festival hall to support the 6-year-old prodigy at his first performance.

His chubby cheeks were glowing red, his mother had rubbed them with bergamot. After all, the child needed vitamin C. Her grin exposed the gaps between her teeth. Magic stood in the row of girls of the same age, eagerly waiting for the ballet teacher to give the hand signal to start.
The Guerlain family were already taking photos and filming for all they were worth. When the first notes of Chopin's Spring Waltz rang out and the girls took up the la première position with their bodies stretched out, it was a while before they got the attention of the fidgety Magic. The sense of rhythm was not innate, but the teacher didn't dare tell the wealthy parents, who were among the ballet school's most valuable sponsors.

Every movement of the child, which seemed rather coarse next to the graceful dancers, was rewarded with thunderous applause and cheers from the family.
But then it happened. The bodysuit stretched a little too tightly, so that the pink tulle skirt slipped up over her round tummy and the lace covered her field of vision. Magic's short legs became so tangled that she whirled around on her own axis several times and finally plopped onto the stage with a loud splash. The audience held its breath and mom, dad, aunts and uncles and their entourages rushed onto the stage. The startled child realized from the reaction of his loved ones that it could only have been a bad accident and began to squeal at the top of his voice. The pianist stopped playing.
The whole audience took part in the unfortunate incident. However, this had no negative impact on the collective judgment. In a moment of gratuitous applause and praise for the child's dance, the really talented girls slipped off the stage without a sound.

As a consolation, the aunts stuffed marzipan with sweet almonds into the victim's mouth so that she couldn't decide whether to cry or chew. In the end, she couldn't do both. The event was over.

Weeks later, concerned citizens and patients were still asking the parents about the youngest's health.
The accident had not damaged little Magic's career or the school's reputation.
Quite the opposite. The child was printed as a toothless advertising face on all brochures for people interested in ballet throughout the country. Her little bun contained roses and freesias from her father's obligatory bad conscience bouquet to her mother, as she had to do without him so often due to his workload.

The child with the high-born name Magic Guerlain was not the most talented ballerina and not the most beautiful of her kind, but she brought a breath of fresh air into her environment with her average and down-to-earth nature. Hobby gymnastics in a pink leotard is also fun. It doesn't always have to be the big success story. Even if the origin promises the highest quality, I cannot fully agree with the collective exuberant judgment of the masses.
Bergamot provides the citrusy opening, followed by a fresh powderiness of freesia and rose, accompanied by sweet vanilla almonds. This interplay is quite pretty, a little musky and creamy, but not outstanding. If you are used to the beauty of its relatives, it is not clear to me how much DNA the little pink offspring actually carries. In a blind test, I would have expected a different name, indeed a more ordinary family.
I also want to complain about the short shelf life, but... come to my senses at the last moment and give it a polite 7 points, because I have to get a sick note tomorrow.

I go to therapy because I'm afraid of making mistakes. My therapist said that in a reality check, it simply wouldn't be possible to make countless mistakes every day. She sees a fear of making mistakes rather than the likelihood of me actually making them.
"Just take it easy and let it go" were her words. As a precaution, I made sure in her practice that she wasn't referring to the sphincter.

So I took her advice to heart and practiced letting go. It started with the handbrake. I noticed that it was pretty loose after my shopping trip when I heard the commotion on the street. And I thought that choosing the wrong checkout again was the fail of the day. Nope.
I couldn't avoid a bad hair day either. I had simply forgotten how long a strand had to stay wrapped around the curling iron to look like an angel. I was lucky this time: three burnt strands can be easily concealed. Just change the parting and put on a smile. Enough for work.

My colleague was celebrating her birthday and brought delicious cherry cake. I am dying for cherry cake. The fact that I would actually die for any cake remains my secret. I read somewhere that it would look more mysterious to the outside world if you were selective. My fridge was empty because I had forgotten to close the door. All the food had gone off, of course. So, with a growling stomach, I set to work on the cake.

"Hey, did you eat the whole cake by yourself?" my colleague Charlotte asked incredulously.

"Hm" I replied, undecided as to whether a yes from me would be considered gluttonous.

"Oh my goodness, it was all tin... Then there's nothing left for the boss!" she regretted in a tearful voice.
Charlotte was his perfectionist secretary with a perfect bun and perfect fingernails.

"Oh, the boss's belly is fat enough. He should eat some carrots," I replied, munching until I realized why Charlotte's facial expression had suddenly frozen
Jo, the guy with the paunch was of course behind me. After a good telling off, I no longer knew where the stomach ache had come from. Psychosomatic, stupidity or a cherry overload.

Unfortunately, my therapy session had to be canceled the next day because I only realized at the "Zoo" terminus that I had probably got the wrong train. Not that a therapeutic session in the monkey stable wouldn't have been interesting.
However, I wasn't able to tell my therapist about my faux pas either. Because at the station, a young man who already looked pretty bedraggled asked me if he could borrow my Iphone 15, he had to call a cab because otherwise he wouldn't be able to get home. Poor guy. I wonder if he was just as unlucky I have to say he smelled pretty unpleasant, so I held my cell phone out to him with my arm outstretched while I breathed through my mouth. When he still hadn't come back four hours later, I made my way to my mother's house on foot. I had forgotten my front door key on the bus. I had to sleep somewhere.

Letting go had gone pretty well until then, hadn't it? I was starting to feel like an alien.
I shuffled through the city with my head hanging down, summertime was long gone and darkness was falling. Attracted by the light-flooded window of a perfumery, I entered. Everything was shining and it smelled so good. I asked if I could touch the bottle with the glittering Roja lid and before I knew it, the saleswoman was saving the bottle from shattering on the highly polished tiled floor in a matter of seconds. I gave her credit for this extraordinary reaction! As a result, I didn't have to pick up a single bottle myself. No, the nimble lady took care of that and sprayed everything onto a strip of paper for me from a safe distance. I just say service for the customer king.
Unfortunately, strangely enough, I didn't prove to be very good at choosing fragrances. Somehow everything smelled rather like shaving foam. That's because we're in the men's department, she said. What am I looking for? Preferably a fragrance that suits me. She scrutinized me and then held out a purple, rather wacky bottle, which she reflexively pulled away again. She thought she'd better spray it on herself. Maybe she remembered the near-accident from earlier.

The moment she sprayed the fragrance on, I was hooked. It was out of this world! Intense, floral, very sweet and so deep that it took my breath away. It must be the dominant jasmine flower, she explained. But what a particularly beautiful one. Different from what I was used to. Ambergris is responsible for the twist and the certain sweetness. And the cashmere wood shows up at the end in the base. Whoever this mysterious ambergris was, I just had to have it!
Alien was the name of the fragrance in the bottle, which reminded me of a beetle. Well, if that didn't fit. As I left the store, I felt protected by a higher power. I must have radiated the entire city with my sillage, it was so bombastic. Once you have smelled Alien, you will never forget it. Hard to beat in terms of uniqueness.

Something strange has happened since that encounter. I only realized two days later that I hadn't made any more serious mistakes and that my fear of them had disappeared. The nuclear aura that the right fragrance has on me and my surroundings is amazing. Alien always triggers a reaction. Almost nobody is neutral about it. After my boss showered me with compliments and Charlotte with cherry pies every day, I changed jobs. I now work in risk management. Error calculation and prevention. After all, that's what I'm an expert in.
From experience, I wouldn't recommend the scent for the office - too much cherry pie will make you round as a ball or the compliments will go to your head. Nobody needs hostility either.

By the way, I haven't had a bad hair day since then either. I have a theory for the happiness formula: A stroke of luck canceled out the alien streak of bad luck.

P.S. Next time I'm in the perfumery, I'm determined to give the service-oriented saleswoman a tip to practise letting go. After all, she had landed a lucky strike with me.

"Rada! Raaaada! Radka open the door at last!"

Rada blinked before she realized that her mobile dwelling was rocking. Was there an earthquake?
It was a while before she found her hearing aids on the wooden floor next to the divan. They had obviously rolled off the table. Now she heard loud banging on the door. She threw on her feathered robe and looked sleepily out of the window.

"Vladi, what's going on? Is there a flood?"

"No! What did you give Petko for his Mariyka? She ran away. Left him stranded. And Donka caught her old goat jerking off with the fat farmer's wife in the stable. You can imagine she's crying her eyes out now and..."

Rada let Vladimir into the darkened velvet cave. Startled, she listened to his reports. It was terrible.

Rada's real name was Bogomila Dzhenka Gospodinka Nadezhda Lyubomila Radoslawa Mihaylova. Vladimir was the only one who was allowed to call her by her nickname. She simply called him Vladi. He saw it as an honor because he had a crush on her. She hadn't heard him yet.

Nevertheless, Rada's skills in hypnosis and - yes, let's say "therapy" as a love matchmaker made her famous far beyond Bulgaria's borders. The only difference was her lack of a license. But nobody really asked about that. She also liked to use unconventional methods to help her clients. Lonely souls came to her and were given a highly concentrated herbal tincture, which they were supposed to slip unnoticed to the person they wanted. They fell in love with the desperate admirers within a very short time.
Their success rate was 100%, so it goes without saying that the recipe was kept under lock and key. Rada wore the scrap of paper under the lace trim of her panties. Hidden under several rolls of flab that Wladi liked so much.

Every day, hundreds of love-seekers camped out in a queue in front of her home, an old circus wagon that she had leased from Vladimir.

What had gone so wrong in the space of two days? Was it Cupid's fault, who had wildly mixed up the hearts, or had rabies broken out in the village? If she didn't act immediately, this news would ruin her reputation and she would have to make herself dependent on her tenant after all.

She was no longer the youngest, but she was far from suffering from dementia. Rada tied back her heavy fiery red curls with a headscarf and began to inspect the huge kettle with the tincture very carefully. If her cleavage was in the way, Wladi was happy to help out by grabbing the pot.
She sniffed and stirred around in the warm soup with the ladle. Suddenly, she fished out a foreign object. With pointed fingers, she held the sole of a shoe in front of Wladi's slipped features and read off the size 46.
Wladi's eyes widened.

"Oh Rada... that's not mine... Well, not exactly. Yesterday I threw my shoe through the window... you're sleeping like a dead woman. After all, how should anyone be able to reach you..."

Aha. The source of the problem was identified. The sole had probably come off the slipper during the throw and had accidentally fallen into the love potion.
Her brain was now working at full speed. Would she manage to heal the damage?

Now that Wladi was not entirely innocent of the misery, she sent him off to get certain ingredients. She emptied a bag of almonds into her pot, added wood and refined it with vanilla. She picked jasmine, tuberose and lily of the valley from her garden. Due to her fame, Rada received so many bouquets of roses that you could make the whole of the East happy with them. So she chose the finest velvet blossoms and added them. Wladi brought apricots, plums and allspice. Finding coconuts was a challenge. The uncle of Wladi's neighbor, Vasil, had just visited from Cuba and brought the exotic nuts with him.
It now smelled deliciously sweet with almond cookies and the finest spices. The new tincture could not be drunk. But Rada would have loved to bathe in it. Wladi hung his head on her shoulder and whispered sweet nothings in her ear: "Krasiva, you're like baklava..."
So she came up with the idea of bottling the liquid and handing it out to the stray ladies to rub on themselves. This had the effect that the gentlemen of creation were so enchanted by the scent and its powerful sillage that they immediately set off on their courtship. This in turn had the advantage that no more tincture had to be infused, but the ladies were able to make a completely natural selection of their many admirers.

The aroma emanating from Rada's circus wagon smelled so enticing that the villagers gathered outside her door. They asked if there were sugared almonds for sale. Wladi had the good idea to pull the circus wagon through the countryside with his tractor and offer the blood-red bottles for sale. Preferably where there were coconuts.
The extraordinary team and the sight of the attractive Rada alone attracted so much attention that the bottles were literally snatched out of her hands. She hid the recipe - you know where. Only Wladi had received the key to her safe in the meantime.

"Shh, have you heard about the new one?"

"Nah, who do you mean?"

"The new inmate. He's supposed to be one of the really tough guys. But don't worry, chicken leg. We don't know any competition." Steele flexed his muscles and contorted his face to look as dangerous as possible.

There had been excited whispering behind the prison walls ever since an empty cell in the high-carat wing had been disinfected for a new occupant. The really tough guys were at home here in the corridor. Robbery, murder and manslaughter alone were not enough. A good dose of disobedience and resistance to law enforcement officers, as well as a negative prognosis for social rehabilitation, were required to apply for five square meters here. At least for the next 10-15 years.

Steele was secretly excited, but he would never reveal that to the others. He would take the secret to his grave. He knew a thing or two about secrets. He was the leader of a gang that flattened pretty much anyone who stood in the wrong way. Yes, a crooked look was enough for a good punch in the jaw. So it was an advantage to gain his favor and become part of the gang. It certainly saved a lot of trouble and chipped teeth. Steele was reminiscent of a Marvel character with a neck like a bull, sultry eyebrows and massive muscle mass. Even the skull was tattooed.
It was self-explanatory that all newcomers had to get past him first. If he sensed strength, they were put through Steele's selection process. From tests of courage to surprising attacks. His ingenuity in terms of perfidy was almost endless. He only shrugged off the rags he had discarded. You didn't get your hands dirty with mosquitoes.

At lunchtime, the new inmate was led into the hall by an officer and introduced. The prisoners raised their heads to check him out first. Steele was one of them. Everyone looked furtively at the gang boss and held their breath, wondering how he would react to the newcomer. After all, his judgment was the one to follow.

"What's your name?" barked Steele as the prisoners stood behind him.

"Lucky."

"Lucky? What are you - a dog?"

"Never heard of Lucky Luke?"

Steele grunted contemptuously. He was still unsure whether he should lose his temper just yet. It was hard to tell whether the guy was trying to make fun of him or whether he was just being stupid. The latter would be too boring for a real rivalry, though. So he came closer and stood up to his full height. He eyed him aggressively.

"Why Lucky Luke? What do you have to sit for?"

The newcomer stood in front of the machine in a relaxed posture, almost without a pulse. The scene seemed to amuse him, the hint of a grin flitting across the corners of his mouth.
He was a head shorter than the giant in front of him and had a slimmer build. An angular masculine face and a full head of black hair to match his dark complexion. His black eyes flashed like two pointed spears, ready to eliminate the enemy in seconds. Nothing escaped his watchful gaze.

"Why am I here? I burned Aventus Creed's lemon orchards and cut down Layton's apple trees, trampled Sauvage's lavender fields with my horse and drowned King Naxos in a honey pot. Then I..."

The prisoners shuddered.

"You did what? You can't be serious! No one has ever dared to do that before. Golly!" Steele exclaimed before he was even aware of this recognition.

From the crowd, a thawed voice with a pounding heart dared to ask: "Yes, but what's going to happen to the world? Are we all going to stink from now on?"

"Don't worry," said the self-proclaimed Lucky and pulled up a chair with a flourish. "The world will smell better than before. I've taken his Delina from old Herod."

That couldn't be true. No one dared to say another word. What kind of guy was he? Delina was the queen. And she was willing to share her bed with him? Who is this guy?

Steele sat down across from him at the table without a word. He shredded the chicken with his meaty fists. Why cutlery if not for fighting.

"Why aren't you eating?" he growled with his mouth full, making the chunks fly. A lack of table manners was part of social climbing here.
Lucky wiped half the chicken out of his eye and stuck out his tongue, which was covered in ash. A horrible smell of cold smoke drifted through the eating hall.
"Already ate."

Disgusted, Steele turned his head away. Apparently the guy had sucked the ashtrays dry, because cigarettes cost almost a fortune in prison if you could get them legally.

"I absorbed the ashes with my mother's milk in the desert. The fire of the Orient burns in me. Don't mess with me, little steel, otherwise you'll bend..."

Now Steele saw red! That was enough provocation. He jumped up as if stung by a tarantula, took the fork from the table
And rammed it full force into his upper body. The fork pierced his black leather jacket and turtleneck sweater. The newcomer lifted his sweater unimpressed. A muscular, angular body was revealed. But not a single drop of blood! To everyone's surprise, he shook sawdust out of his clothes. Really nice splinters with the finest grain.

Steele's jaw dropped.

"Bleeding is only for girls! I'm made of real wood. Eat your chicken and get your strength, sugar baby," the newcomer said, adding with a wink before leaving the room for a smoke, "My name is Maahir. Mahir Black."

"Lucky Luke is a joke," a frightened little voice whispered from the background, interrupting the dead silence.

A clever move by Maahir to change location, otherwise there might have been more deaths. From now on, Steele ate huge amounts of spinach to become even stronger. He also decided to apply to Maahir for membership of his gang. He is not yet sure about the bribe, because he really doesn't know what to do with fags. Tattoos don't look so good on a wooden body either. Maybe a children's Maxi King...

Maahir Black is a testosterone-laden fragrance. Slim in variation, muscular and very persistent. I would say it has horsepower. One you better not mess with. No sense of detail, rather coarse. He's unlikely to win the prize for the art of seduction. He only wears black leather and announces himself from afar with cold smoke instead of fanfare. In the desert this is an art, in closed rooms almost a torture. Balsam or sweetness have been completely robbed from it and replaced with lots of wood and a pinch of pepper spice. Masculine to the bitter
-Finish

There is no more desolate place than a long, bare hallway with neon lights shining mercilessly down on its bourgeois subjects from a height of 3 meters, transforming their complexions into those of the long dead.

If you want to use irony, it would certainly be the most romantic place. The place where time seems to stand still.
So I sat patiently for 40 minutes on the wooden folding seat attached to the wall, muttering to myself in a continuous loop "don't forget the yellow bags, don't forget the yellow bags...". German citizens must follow the rules of meticulous waste separation. If they don't, they are left with their plastic waste. So it's better to sit on the official folding seat and dutifully ask for garbage bags, which are handed out by the staff. But only one roll per person, of course. After all, the city has to save money.
Very romantic, I know.
I counted the slats in the neon tubes above me for the 18th time. 315 to the end of the corridor. Or was it 314 this time? How had the missing slat managed to sneak away so unnoticed?
A shuffling officer with a coffee cup in her hand caught my attention. Seizing the opportunity, I asked when I could finally apply for my passport and get yellow bags.
Not here at all, I was told. I wondered if I hadn't read the information on the second floor, around the corner to the right. Because at least it was still there yesterday lunchtime. No, of course I hadn't. Where in God's name would I get help now, I wanted to know. It was like pulling worms out of my nose. I resisted the impulse to shake the lady.
From pillar to post via the freight elevator, past the cashier three times to the locked file room... Now I'd had enough. I burst into the next office and voiced my frustration and then my concerns again. Yes, I admit it was a bit of a rant. The official with the most accurate side parting I've ever seen was so startled that his square glasses slipped off his nose and got caught with one temple in the cord of his pullover. I didn't care about the stitch. I refused to provide information about my liability insurance and exactly 20 seconds later found myself in front of the iron gates of the authority accompanied by two auxiliary police officers with a house ban.

I thought it couldn't get any worse until I received a letter. Exactly. A love letter in the nicest official German from my sweater boyfriend. I told you, romantic place.

"Dear Mrs. Chouchou,

with reference to yesterday's meeting outside of an appointment, I am enclosing the ban on entering the house that I have already conveyed to you verbally in written form

The following reasons led to the refusal of further access to the municipal properties by your person:
1. As part of your inappropriate speech, the usability of the decibel meter was completely removed. This was a disturbance of the official premises and thus an irritation of public order. With the removal of your person from the above-mentioned property, at least the acoustic disturbance could be eliminated and official peace restored.

2. By activating the smoke detector while you were present, public safety was directly endangered. This is almost certainly due to the effect of your scented product. The contaminated air contained containers of floral ornamental plants such as orange blossom, rose, jasmine and tuberose.
in the foyer of the main entrance to the property, explicit reference is made to refraining from consuming food and drink. Nevertheless, I take the liberty of accusing you of having consumed citrus fruits, cinnamon and chocolates on the premises of my place of work, as the odors had a lasting effect over an indefinite period of time, but at least 3 hours. The ability to concentrate was considerably impaired for this period and public traffic came to a standstill. according to witnesses, you caused a shock situation to the detriment of a member of staff, so that the ground floor corridor was contaminated by stains from a hot drink containing caffeine. You will be charged with paying the cleaning bill.
The display of the pumps of an erotic nature constitutes a public nuisance. in addition, a further danger could not be ruled out due to your choice of footwear. The pointed heels are dangerous tools,
which, through the visual stimulus alone, threaten serious harm and can cause damage to physical integrity if used improperly. Without an official permit, this constitutes a violation of the applicable weapons legislation.for the reasons stated above, you are requested to hand in your weapons by the end of the 23rd calendar week."

I paused. What do they want from me?

So the side parting felt distracted by my scent. Too sexy for your romance with the authorities? Baby, you're about to get a full dose of concentration impairment. Put your pen aside for a week, I thought, and sprayed the envelope full of the most delicious coffee, vanilla and floral notes before grinning and enclosing the culprit, my Good Girl Waffen high heels for the return shipment. So now I'll just walk around in Adilettes. After all, sex appeal doesn't depend on the shape of the shoe. You just have to feel it. So be it.
Let someone say I'm not a good girl! At least I met the deadline.

When I wanted to take the explosive shipment to the post office, I discovered outside my front door...
a new roll of yellow bags.