The Smell Was Terrible
He was overwhelmed. He took three steps down; the odor made him palegic, and nauseous, his shoulders slumped and he wretched. A blow to the back of the head, accompanied with a yank by the scruff of the neck pulled him from the dank stairwell. Something told him, "don't go down there - it's difficult to return if you do."
It was terrible. What was it? Where did it come from? It was everywhere. How could things so beautiful, people so full of intelligence and talent exist in such stench? Couldn't they with their work live apart from that odor, why couldn't they smell or see it? The only explanation is they never left it long enough to experience clean air. They did not carry the pungency of what would waft, except when they sighed. They did carry the look of the smell. They spake and behaved and moved the way some smokey gas does. I guess sedation only allows certain behaviors, but this unnatural gas was suffocation and sedation at once. It caused them to move sluggishly, heavily, jerkily. They twitched and thrashed about nervously, desperately and involuntarily. It was as though they suffered under a surgeon's scalple barely anesthasized, unable to scream out "stop, it hurts"! They could only exhale and emit the odious smell, they did have the glory of the human shape however. All their disturbed ongelation oozed, spewed and spirted were colors and paint. Smudge, rub, daub, brush, wipe, throw, drizzle, pour, bleed, mix and taste colors, all in dead light. But somehow, what they made was luminous, transcendent, curious, intelligent, beautiful, naive and good. Their work was what remained of their humananity after life in the fume, paint is how they chronicled the truth.
The young man was annoyed by his apprehension and rationality, he imagined the appearance of cowardice to be worse then the sick smell he encountered. He was not afraid of the odor, but frankly did not want to waste his life, you see he was told he might be anything. That night his mind cast a, if not reasoned, definitely creative interpretation of his experience. In the dream a much older version of himself solidly explained, what lay at the bottom of the stairwell and beyond was an experiment in human fermentation. Of course, many of his more pragmatic friends never accused him of imaginings less than wild. So, he forced thoughts upon himself to make his left brain boast. He told himself his dream had been too Wells, too Wachowskian. He reasoned, once fermented what more precious thing could be made to grow than human potential, and besides what agent would concoct such a plot? Nevertheless, he couldn't help but imagine the old men, and mature women, and young men and women, and children, and dogs, and cats, and rats, and stories, and pictures might be seen, though what lived did slog. They breathed air so heavy it pressed cement, and sod, and dirt, and tar, and clay, and every manner of fill to make a sink hole they could wait and exist in until anything happened. Few could explain from whence the stairs came, it was only said they're not easily climbed. Still, no vision, or dream, or nightmare could be so good as what would be learned with one descent into the stairwell lit like a Caravaggio.
Written by George Tuber
