The Morning Stench

 

(The smell was terrible.)

Yesterday, I woke up at 5 a.m. and drank a cup of instant coffee. Then I read the headlines on my smartphone while taking a nasty dump. A woman from Daegu was being stalked by her ex-boyfriend, so she made the mistake of calling the cops to report his strange behavior. In revenge, he broke into the lady’s apartment and killed her eight-year-old boy with a knife. But he wasn’t finished. He also murdered her for good measure. For his crimes against humanity, he will have to spend the next forty years in prison. The punishment seems kind of light to me.

I called my mother using Facebook Messenger.

She said, “Anything new in your life?”

I nodded. “I recently spoke to the Dragon Lady.”

“And?”

“She wants me to give her $18,000 to help pay for her apartment.”

“$18,000! Is she crazy or what?”

“Of course she’s crazy. I don’t even have enough money to buy a porno magazine.”

Mom looked at me with a stern expression on her face. “This isn’t a laughing matter. And quite frankly, I’m getting sick and tired of your silly jokes. You have children to take care of.”

“You’re absolutely right. But I look at it this way. It could always be worse. At least I’m not in the Gaza Strip getting tortured and ass-raped by Hamas.”

She sighed heavily. “Well, that’s certainly true. And I get your point. We should all be thankful for what we have. Yet I think it’s time for you to come home. Enough is enough.”

“Trust me. If I start getting calls from irate creditors when I’m at work, then me and Rice-Boy will run for the nearest plane. I’m definitely not going to stick around for that.”

“Do you think it will come to that?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I’ve been looking up stuff about the matter on the internet. All the debt is in her name, so the banks will come after her first. But she has the right to take me to civil court if she thinks I’m screwing her financially.”

“If it were me, I would have been on that plane the moment she ran away.”

“We’ll see what happens.”

I caught the bus to work at 6:40 a.m. I had no problems finding a seat, but I kept smelling this foul odor emanating from my feet. I suddenly feared that I was wearing dirty socks. And trust me. The stench was awful. When I eventually got to my office, I took them off and smelled them. Nothing. Fresh as a daisy. It was then that I noticed that the bottom of my right shoe was smeared with dog shit. I started laughing like a maniac.

My friend and colleague Richard Hurtz stepped into the room. He’s a giant of a man, standing seven-feet tall.

He said, “What's so funny?”

“I stepped in crap, and the smell is outrageous. Stand next to me and take a whiff.”

“No thanks.”

He left me completely alone, shutting the door behind him.

I began surfing the internet. Netflix has a limited series coming out based on Poe’s The Fall the of House of Usher. It’s made by the same guy who directed The Haunting of Hill House. I’m really looking forward to seeing the show. Netflix is one of my greatest joys in life.

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