Chapter 1: Part 1, Litany of Rot

He sat there alone, in the dark, quite unsure of his standings in the world. Even the most inconsequential of us have a sense of who we are, we are defined by our accomplishments and our actions, but not him. No, most definitely, not him. He sat there fingering the stitches and staples that crisscrossed his forearm like rusty train tracks crossing the heartland, segregating corn fields from farm. His whole body itched, it was the type if itch that you can't scratch without causing pain, like the itch of a healing wound.

Time swirled around him like the cold Atlantic fog rolling in off Boston harbor. He felt conscious of it's passing but couldn't grasp how long he'd been there. He had tried to move his legs a few times to get up but he couldn't get the myriad of muscles to coordinate the intricate ballet of balance needed to stand. Instead he spasmed a lurch and struggled a stumble to gain a blurred glance of his surroundings. Each time he hit the floor fireworks of pain flared up and exploded in fantastic colors inside his clenched eyelids, wait, did he even have eyelids to shut because he couldn't remember ever blinking.

With every colorful display receding he felt a little more in control of his senses, as the hangover after the fourth of July abated into a dull headache he became more aware of his surroundings. He could tell that he was naked, not so much see that he was naked, but feel that he was unclothed. His epileptic floor routine earlier clued him in to that, as his skin was covered in the wet slime which seemed to carpet the ground. There was a faint stream of light that trickled in through a small X shaped hole in the wall high above him. It was a dim and faded light that seemed only to exist to frustrate him as he strained to see anything illumined by it.

A putrid sweet smell such as that of spoiled ham strode past his nose every once and a while and threatened to entice the contents of his stomach to follow. Unsure of what he ate last and not wanting to go through the uncofortable process of finding out the hard way he jerked his head to the right. The faint light quivered dizzily, the smell grew worse by a magnitude and a fit of retching racked his body as bile passed his lips and joined the other slime on the floor. The smell of rot never ceased assailing his nostrils, in fact it seemed to have crawled up their and set up a permanent residence, green card and all. He turned his head, this time slower, to the left. It seemed no matter where he located his proboscis the smell of rot followed. The futility of being stuck encased in a dark wet stench was almost overwhelming when he made the discovery that it wasn't his environ which throttled him with rot, the smell of rot... was coming from him.



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