I’m about to scout a morgue.

“I want to warn you,” says my guide. “We just finished an autopsy on a person who had been dead for three days before anyone found him. There’s still a smell in the room, and it can be intense.”

“Should I have put some Vic’s under my nose before coming in?” I ask, thinking back to all the police procedurals in which I’d seen this done.

“Oh sure, if you want to pass out, hit your head, and become the rookie story we laugh about all week. Happens all the time. Just try not to breathe through your nose.”

We go inside and I begin taking my scout pictures. And at first, I’m able to keep to breathing through my mouth, avoiding any odors.

But as time passes, I become curious. In my head, the smell of a decaying corpse is something like old hamburger meat you forgot you’d left in the fridge a month ago, or a torn-open garbage bag left to bake in the hot sun. Eventually, the desire to know for sure becomes too great, and I take a tentative sniff.

I immediately wish I could go back to what I thought the smell must’ve been. Because the reality is worse. So much worse.

It’s a smell unlike any I’ve ever experienced.

It’s ashy, but not like smoke.

It’s greasy, but not like food.

There’s a heavy, almost humid weight to it.

In my mind, I grope for more adjectives to describe it, but it is entirely singular. All I can arrive at is that the smell is wrong. It is wrong. It is wrong.

The smell lingers in my nose long after I leave the property.

And I know I will never forget it.