How can I describe it? It’s like, three-day-old egg salad spread atop burnt tuna, dipped in a bucket of chum, and then left on an East Coast beach in mid-August to rot. Yeah, kind of like that. Gag-inducing doesn’t even begin to describe it. I have stood by the River of Dead—that’s what I call it—in India. It was a place where mosquitos blotted out the sun and maggots covered the banks like wiggling, grotesque living sand. The river was lined with Temples on both sides. It was a place where dead loved ones were set adrift atop the rancid waters—their families watching and mourning as they floated toward their Otherworld. That smelled better than the Nether. And that’s what made me look up—the smell. I had been so engrossed in my latest tome, I didn’t even realize I had shifted. I’m not even entirely certain how long I’d been there. The vomiting started before actual realization had set in. “Could a woman possibly be any more revolting than you?
