Awful Smell

When I opened my apartment door on Monday, that's when the smell hit me full force. As my olfactories tried desperately to forget what they had sniffed, my mind was horrified that I had let the garbage sit that long in the trash can. I sprinted to the kitchen sink to investigate the waste underneath it in that old, white container. Nothing perishable was in it, just an old milk carton and some Clif Bar wrappers. Couldn't be the cause.

Confounded, I checked the grabage disposal, thinking that perhaps some strawberries or chicken bits were left down there. I smiled to myself, thinking that must be it. I have had a power problem underneath my sink, and so I leave the garbage disposal plugged into an extension cord that I only plug in occasionally. Plus, it had been making a weird noise, which left me more unwilling to run the fucking thing at all. I pulled out a flashlight to find the offenders.

"Here, little bits of rotting food. Come out, come out, wherever you are. I am going to have to destroy you now." I thought that my friendly tone would coax them into existence, to no avail. The garbage disposal was clean as a whistle.

The smell remained. Like carrots and throw up. Waiting, untouched, by the Nag Champa incense I burned to dull the putrid stench. "Stupid hippies and their damned incense," I thought to myself.

The stench is a symbol, my darlings. A symbol of the issues in my life that are upsetting me. I knew that something was horribly, horribly wrong here. But for the life of me, I couldn't find out the source of the smell. I couldn't identify the problem and make it go the hell away. The incense did nothing. The open windows did nothing. It was there, taunting me. It made me want to throw myself off a cliff. Or maybe just my roof.

Today it dawned on me. A rat. Has crawled. Into my walls. And Has Died There.

The smell that was soaking into every tissue of my body was coming from a dead rodent.

On this lovely Wednesday that doesn't feel so lovely to me, I have had a moment of clarity. I get it, God, thank you. Now I know what was making me feel so terrible. Thanks for the insight, my eyes are wide open...and all that shit that people say when they feel like they finally open their goddamn eyes.

So my logical mind says, "What do we do, Grae? How do we make this better for ourselves? How do we avoid spending our precious time worrying and agonizing over this issue?"

The answer? Nothing.

I have to wait it out. I have to keep burning incense and letting the breeze blow through the treehouse, but the smell will linger. This is normal, everyone goes through it in the hills. I am experiencing something normal, something typical. And I can do nothing but wait it out and hope for the best.

Soon, the smell will go away. Soon, the pain will leave this heart of mine and I will be free again. Nag Champa will smell the way it's supposed to, and not like a weak, pathetic attempt to achieve normality in the treehouse. One day I will wake up and be excited about how wonderful life is, since I have a face and working limbs and clear skin and all that. Someday I will once again appreciate these things I have.

But right now, I am breathing in the fumes. I am over-saturated and imbibing something that I want no part of. I wish I didn't have to go through this. I wish things were different. I wish that rat had died in the hills, and that the people I love would love me back. But that's not the way it is.

Inhale.

Exhale.

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