"Stinker" by Bruce Steppes

It was an ordinary Tuesday. But not like any other Tuesday prior to this specific Tuesday, or even the next Tuesdays that followed. It was a Tuesday that was exact and a day that everyone would recall with a sharp memory the events that took place in the science hall. I was turning the corner of the math hallway with a book in hand and a juice box in the other, when my friend Stinker darted towards me. I could see by the beads of sweat that rolled off his face and the wet body fluids that spread through the armpits of the same shirt he's worn for five days straight, that something was horribly wrong. 

Besides the chaotic scene that had already approached me and standing in my way, I began to ask him what was wrong as I released the apple juice- filled straw from my mouth. Stinker itched his gigantic belly and took exactly 62 seconds to catch his breath before he announced that there was an atrocious smell coming from the science hallway. I was sick that day and my sense of smell was of no use, so I had to trust what Stinker had told me. I motioned him to lead the way but I noticed the hallways quickly emptied when Stinker got near. I watched in pure horror as he pulled his wedgie out approximatley 3 times as I followed behind him to the destination, but I quickly shook the sight out of my head. He began to tell me how he witnessed two teachers run as if escaping some sort of death, but he could not see what they were so afraid of. 

We arrived in the science hallway but saw nothing but emptiness. No signs of sweaty gyms socks or left over lunch from last week. No over-flowing garbage can or a chemical experiment gone wrong. I saw nothing but empty space. But then it happened... It happened so quickly that an adult cheetah could not escape it. If I had been given a two minute head start to run away from the foul smell that I was about to endure, I do not think I could have made it. Babies cried all over the world and young children wept in their sleep during nap time. A recession had begun in our economy and somewhere in Ohio a young boy lost his vision. These events were caused by the unimaginable and unthinkable. Stinker Valinski let out a loud and obnoxious fart that could have potentially destroyed mankind. It was a firecracker that ripped through the hall and left astronauts wondering about the sounds on earth. He burnt a hole through the bottom of his shorts that also blew his lunch money right out of his pockets. The floor was dusted in black smoke and his shoes had separated from his socks that were now hanging on the ceiling. But then it came and even Sherlock Holmes could not have been able to detect it. 

It was an odor that left Charlie still wondering about Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory.  The smell was putrid and I could feel my eyelashes slowing disintegrating as my eyebrows were burning off.   Stinker turned around to find that I, his now hairless friend, had nothing left of my juice box besides a melted straw. Men, women, and children filed out of their classrooms holding their mouths and noses. Classical music filled with sorrow began to play in the background as weak individuals fell to the ground by the torment of stinkers fart. Classmates helped each other up and a teacher hurried to push a kid in a wheelchair who got stuck in the doorway. The scene was heartbreaking.  Stinker Valinski was the source of the issue and he did not even know it. The exterminators came to take him away, and that was the last of Stinker and his stink bombs.