Department of Ambient Offenses · Division of Airworthiness
The Bureau of Unlicensed Odors
All odors must be licensed. Unlicensed odors are not illegal; they are at large.
Notice of Jurisdiction
The Bureau exists to ensure that every odor in the jurisdiction carries a valid license. The Bureau does not judge odors. Good and bad are not categories we recognize; licensed and at large are. An unlicensed odor is not a criminal — it is simply loose, walking the streets with no papers in its coat, and the Bureau keeps a file on every one of them.
The Bureau's inspectors are trained to smell responsibly: to approach an odor from regulation distance, to describe it in two columns — fundamento (what the smell is made of) and viento a favor (what the smell is trying to become) — and never to convict a specimen before calibrating the nose.
Public Filings
FILING 001 At large
An unlicensed cabbage odor, at large since October. Complaints describe it as "everywhere" and "specifically nowhere in particular." Working hypothesis, entered after months of diligent inspection: the odor is not in the cabbage; the odor is in the lore. The Bureau has stopped looking for the cabbage. The cabbage was never the point.
FILING 002 Licensed by mystery
Two pickles on a small plate. Fundamento: brine — confirmed at regulation distance. Viento a favor: mystery — confirmed unresolved; the explanation remains on permanent back-order, which the Bureau recognizes as the highest grade of tailwind. The pickles claim to unlock nothing. Accepted and filed. Verdict: licensed by their own mystery, may remain on the table indefinitely.
FILING 003 Exempt
The smell of rain on warm pavement, filed by a concerned citizen as "suspiciously pleasant." Dismissed with prejudice: petrichor is a natural phenomenon and carries an automatic exemption under Schedule A. The citizen was given a form to fill out anyway, for their own good.
FILING 004 At large (loyal)
The elevator at 14 Placid Street smells of wet dog on dry days. The dog has never been found. The building permits no dogs. The smell persists, patient and warm, as if waiting for someone it remembers. The Bureau notes that loyalty is not a license, but it is also not nothing.
FILING 005 Insufficient odor
An anonymous complaint alleging "a general wrongness, hard to say, you know?" The Bureau cannot license what it cannot imagine. The complaint has been filed under INSUFFICIENT ODOR and the citizen has been invited to smell again, more slowly.
Schedule A — Exemptions
The following odors are exempt from licensing and may not be filed against, however suspicious their pleasantness:
- Rain on warm pavement (petrichor, natural phenomenon)
- Bread baking before noon (the Morning Loaf Doctrine)
- New books (grandfathered under the Printer's Accord)
- The interior of any library, regardless of actual contents
- Coffee before 9 a.m. (licensed by universal consent; no further paperwork required)
- The sea (outside the Bureau's jurisdiction, permanently and by request of the sea)
File a Complaint
Have you smelled something without papers? The Bureau wants to know. Anonymous complaints are accepted; we do not need to know who you are, only what you smelled.
The Licensing Office
To license an odor, obtain Form 7-B. Form 7-B cannot be downloaded, mailed, or found. It is issued in person, to odors that deserve it, by an official whose office hours are themselves unlicensed. Applicants report that the search for Form 7-B was more rewarding than the license would have been. The Bureau considers this the system working.