Every day, all day, Bill smelled shit or burning hair. He'd ask everyone if they smelled it too, and when they’d inevitably say no, he’d just assume they were lying. Bill, your friendly neighborhood health inspector, thought everyone lied to him. It wasn't until the distinct odor of his wife’s crotch—she’d been dead for years—began to permeate his senses that he started to suspect something was truly wrong with his own head.

But Bill wasn't one to see a doctor. Instead, he’d chase the fear away with smoke, snorts, and casual encounters. A buzz always beat reality, and the idea of a tumor or a ticking arterial bomb was as real as it got. One Monday, he took two hundred dollars in crisp bills from a corner market, a payment for overlooking a frisky roach, and used it to buy a few bags of the finest chemical concoction a creep could cook up. He smoked it in his Official Government Vehicle before driving to his favorite strip club, an establishment that always earned an 'A' during inspection, in exchange for a gratis lunch and a bored lap-dance.

What else was poor Bill to do? Born with a nubby penis and a tendency toward obesity, his mind loaded with buggy software, it was a miracle he'd made it this far. A thousand years ago, he would have been worm food. These days, medical technology and modern law ensured he’d live long enough to realize he couldn’t obliterate the memories of his dead wife or his countless failures, no matter how hard he tried. But we were going to help him, mostly because we didn’t have a choice. Bill was our home.