He hadn't woken up that morning. Not that he was ever awake this early. He tended to slip in and out of his waking dreams till about 10 am, then he'd just nap until noon. Then, after several failed attempts, he'd drag himself out of his apartment sometime after 12 pm. But this morning was different. This morning Jim wouldn't be waking up past noon either. Nor would this be one of those evermore frequent twelve hour sleep days. No, this morning Jim was dead. But this wasn't new news either, as it had already been two weeks since Jim's heart had finally had enough of the years of abuse and decided to fight back. A murder/suicide some would call it. The papers would call it a heart attack. But Jim was already well into the later stages of decomposition on that early Sunday morning when Stacy Waterman got her first real smell of death up her big fat honker.

Stacy had been born with a fairly large nose. She'd been bullied and laughed throughout her childhood and despite what her parents and relatives repeatedly told her, she did not grow into it. After years of torment and even more of therapy she had finally come to accept her nose. Love her nose. But at this moment Stacy hated her nose. Years of tireless therapy sessions and self motivational speeches in the mirror went right out the window. Stacey Waterman would never trust her nose again.

Stacey was only able to decipher the smell from descriptions in whispered voices among her fellow Rental Manager friends at the annual Mason County Home and Apartment Rentals Convention.

"I hear it smells like a bunch of rotten portobello mushrooms left in the sun."

"That doesn't sound right, Camille."

"It's just what I heard. Scott says he heard it's more like rotten eggs, but I think he's just making that up."

Later Stacy would admit that Camille had been correct, but she would also like to add a dash of rotted meat, a spritz of dollar store perfume, and a whole mess of paper work to the description.

But just as Stacy took her first real whiff of two week old dead person two things happened at once: Firstly, Stacey pulled out her cell phone to call her boss as she'd been trained to do in case of emergencies. Secondly, in an almost evolutionary reaction, she began to scream. Her call went straight to voicemail.

"This is Timberwood Rental Agency. We are currently out of the office at the moment, if you would be so kind as to leave your name and number with us we will get back to you as soon as we can. Have a blessed day!"

As soon as the beep of the answer machine went off in the empty offices of Timberwood Rental Agencies, Stacy Waterman's screams shrieked from the speaker echoing off the walls. If any one had been in the office that day, they would have been fairly startled. But no one did. And Stacy's scream ended with a cut as she'd forgotten to change out the answering machine tape the day before. But back at the apartment complex Stacy continued to scream. So loud that everyone in the surrounding complex shot out of their comfy beds to see what all the commotion was about. Everyone except for Jim Harper, Apartment 213, who still laid on the old sagging couch he'd gotten from an ex-girlfriend 8 years ago and never had the heart to throw out, waiting for the final stages of decomposition to finally show him out.