1978
There was an August evening, the kind where the air hangs low and humid as though it is crawling out of the creek and laying over everything in a hot, damp, blanket, and every breath is like swimming through warm mist.
We were sitting down to dinner.
My parents, each at their ends of the table, were quietly conversing, and my sister and I were poking at our plates. Because it was summer. It was hot.
Creeping, just along the edge of sensibility, there came a foul taint. Faint. Unnerving.
“Did you leave something on the stove?” My father asked, a mouthful later.
No, she hadn’t.
We soldiered on. The attack on our senses redoubled. I stopped eating. It grew. My sister stopped eating. It grew even more. My mother pushed her plate away. The world was softly enveloped in vile miasma. My father, sweating under the laborious illusion of “Everything is Fine” finally laid down his fork and knife, and he and my mother locked eyes.
“Should we go look?” I asked. I wanted to do anything besides sit, and let it grow. I was seven. My sister was five. It was 1978.
My parents continued to communicate telepathically for a long moment. My father nodded.
Off we went. Following that hideous, malodorous stench down the road, along the curve, to a flurry…