Facing the Stench

There is a deserted lobby on the 2nd floor of my building. The door is never locked and the offices down there seem to be perpetually "under construction." Personally, I think the offices are closed due to a malpractice suit by the cosmetic "doctor" who used to operate down there. I've heard rumors about him and his "magic hands."

Anyway, due to the recent bout of freezing weather, a majority of Chicago's homeless have taken to sleeping in whatever warmth they can possibly muster. With the lack of security and our open door policy, the lobby has come to resemble a St. Vincent DePaul shelter. It has also become a teeming cesspool of unfathomable rankness. Now, I dont want to sound like an aristocratic bitch but in all honesty, the stench is unbearable. So unbearable that my thick down coat collar, my hand, a hat and a glove could do nothing to mitigate the stench. The mixture of piss, rotted food, grease and many other untraceable scents were causing me to literally heave up my stomach and the rest of my innards for that matter. I dont know if it was God punishing me for thinking that these people should bathe, but the elevator decided to take extra long to get there, almost as if it knew what awaited below. As I stood there trying to hold back three weeks worth of meals from spilling out of my mouth, I caught the eye of one of the ladies. She was wearing an old, green sweater with holes the size of saucers. She had on several pairs of tube socks, all different colors and she had wrapped her head in newspaper to serve as makeshift earmuffs. Her 6 teeth were a rotted yellow and her skin was weather worn and red. She smiled at me, an odd smile. It was a combination of "How did I get here wearing newspaper on my head" to "That's right...I smell and I smell bad and you have to sit here and drink it in." She made an indecipherable motion with her hand and then fell over on top of another man. Like when a heavy object falls on a mattress and feathers fly, this women's experience with gravity caused her to release another horrendous strain of the stench. I could also feel myself sinking into their giant pool of pollution. Just as face began to contort into inhuman shapes, my nose starting to burn, the elevator took pity on me and arrived. I practically pried the doors open with my fingernail and breathed in fresh elevator air.

As the doors were closing, I noticed that earmuff woman had woken up. Her 6 yellow teeth smiled at me again as the doors shut and the odorous beast was beaten back by stainless steel doors and my stomach finally returned to its normal position.

Tomorrow, I'm taking the stairs.