Dead in a ditch

I can smell the putrescent decay from here...

I'm at least a hundred and fifty yards away and I can Still smell it. It's hot and humid today. The end of July always is in the south. "I hate the summer here" I think as I stretch the yellow DO NOT CROSS. CRIME SCENE. tape between the weathered fence posts on either side of the road.

I see my Sergeant down there. He's motioning for me. I respect my sergeant. He's a smart, loyal man. He looks, to me, like agent fox mulder from the x-files show. I duck under the crime scene tape and walk towards him. The gravel crunches and puffs of dust spiral into the air under my feet as I take each step on the gravel back road. The sergeant walks toward me holding his nose. "Can you stay down here for a minute?" he asks. "I need to get some fresh air."
"Sure. Where is it?" I say.
He just points at the woods as he continues walking to my car.

What smells unpleasant at a hundred and fifty yards has become unbearable in the ten feet of separation I now have between myself and the body. I walk to the edge of the woods and there it is.

"MY GOD!" I think. It doesn't even look human any more and I wonder how long its been here, festering in the hot sun and humid air.

It is black, charred looking and splotched with large yellow pockets of what I imagine to be puss. It's bloated to near bursting and seems to be bent in half. It might be laying face down, but it's hard to tell what's what.

It's full of maggots. The body writhes with them just under the slick skin's surface. I can't tell if they're trying to eat their way further in or make their way back out. I decide maybe they are happy where they are. Feasting. There are a few of them squirming hungrily on top of the skin. Trying to eat their way in to join their brothers and aid in the natural order of life and death.

I know that when they move the body it will split open and fall apart gushing a mixture of thick ooze and maggots onto the ground. I'm glad my shift is near end and I won't be here for those festivities.

The body is neither recognizable as male or female. Indistinguishable as to race. I wonder who it was in life. I imagine someone has been missing them. Somewhere I imagine a child, spouse, mother, father or all of the above is hoping their loved one isn't lying dead in this ditch, perhaps they've been pacing the floor waiting on this corpse to walk in the door any minute now. Hoping. Praying.

Whoever this is has become the cliche parents try to scare their teenagers with. The time tested "You'll end up in a ditch dead somewhere."

I wonder what this person did that was so unforgivable they had to be ended like this. I imagine it is one of our local drug addicts.

My shift ends and I go home, talk to my six year old son about the evils of drugs. He rolls his eyes and says "I know all this already daddy. You already told me about it." I give him a hug and he goes to his room to play with his toys and I worry, knowing that someday someone will offer him drugs. I hope at that moment he remembers all the talks we've had about this and he makes the right decision. I don't ever want to pace the floors wondering if he's in a ditch somewhere on a dirty back road. My baby discarded like an animal.