stinky curiosity

Louis stared at his alarm clock. He had to be up in three hours for work and he hadn't slept a wink.

All Louis could think about was the man he met walking home late from the bar last night. He had been out with a couple friends on Saturday night and as the night came to an end, Louis split off and began his walk home. He had made it over half the way back when he heard something around the corner, which he found to be a man replacing a man hole cover.

The man spots Louis eye balling him and walks over to him. As he gets close Louis notices he's wearing raggedy, filthy clothes, is covered in dirt, and smells like raw sewage. Louis asks what he was doing down there when the man responds almost giddy with joy.

The Sewer Man expresses his love for the sewers and how they made him truly free.

Louis stands there, dumbstruck. Who is this man? He's just spouting nonsense about how great the sewers are. Why on earth would anyone voluntarily go down there? Louis slowly started to back away as the man kept blabbering on about how wonderful the sewers are, who was so caught up in his own excitement, didn't even realize louis leaving.

Louis made it home that night and told his girlfriend Jane all about the crazy man. He could not wrap his head around it, how someone could not only enjoy the sewers, but be so enthusiastic about it as well. 

Jane couldn't be bothered more about Louis's obsession and went to bed, while he lit up a bowl and began to ponder.

A week goes by and while Louis still wonders about the man, it doesn't pull his interest as much as it did when it occured. He has mostly accepted it as a mentally ill man who just wanders around, which is not abnormal for his area. 

That is until Louis is on the way home from the bar again, and has another encounter with the sewer man.

This one is much more brief, almost as if the man had somewhere to be and didn't have time to rant about the sewers again. Instead he passed by Louis, simply asking if he'd taken the plunge yet. Louis stood there for a second, and went to turn to respond, but the man was already sliding a manhole cover closed above him.

It was 1:30 in the morning and Louis had drank a bit more than normal, which influenced his decision to check out the sewers. He had to know what the man was talking about and went to follow him.

Louis walked over to the manhole where the man had just disappeared moments before, grabbed the tool the man had left and popped open the cover. He placed his foot on the first rung, then slowly descended and slid the cover closed behind him.

The next morning, Jane awoke to Louis missing, and was a bit worried. She knew he had been at the bar the night before and was worried something had happened, however she didn't consider the possibility that Louis had lost his fight against his curiosity and the sewers.

All of Saturday went by with no word from Louis, and most of Sunday. His phone was off and she was about to file a missing persons report when the front door opened. Jane believed it to be Louis and went to greet him when she was stopped by an atrocious smell. She plugged her nose and turned the corner where she saw a man who looked like Louis, but covered in so much grime and filth he was hardly recognizable. 

Louis exclaimed that he took a trip into the sewers and it was truly wonderful. He couldn't believe how great it was! He was talking a mile a minute, rarely stopping to breathe. Jane was finally able to interrupt him to tell him to clean up before anything else or she would pass out. Louis agreed.

He stepped out of the shower and went to continue telling Jane about the sewers. He started from the beginning on Friday night when he saw the man again and followed him in. By the time Louis got down the man was gone and he was left to explore on his own. He wandered around for hours on end, finding all the nooks and crannies he could, and learning the area he had entered from; which was a miniscule amount of space compared to the vast system of the sewers. He found sewer entrances inside buildings, entrances creating paths that would shave minutes off of commuting. And it was at those moments that Louis had a revelation.

It had finally dawned on Louis what the crazy man had be saying when he was first encountered. He wasn't just talking nonsense; he was talking about how the sewers allow him to be a free man. 

They allowed him to go wherever he wanted. The sewers provided access to every major stadium or event hall in the city. Any secured building, such as banks, were unpatrolled at night, leaving the interiors open to anyone willing.

They allowed him to eavesdrop with ease, as conversations echoed through the bare stone walls of the sewers.

They allowed him to escape the control of the man while still living under their rule.

They allowed him to be who he truly wanted to be, without the guilt of pretending he wasn't.

As he preached his new found knowledge to Jane, all she could think was about how Louis, who had been a pretty normal person as long as they had known each other, was now talking about his love for the sewers and his plans to return with supplies. When he mentioned bringing food, she stopped him and asked if he was being entirely serious and if this wasn't a bit to mess with her.

Louis looked at her and told her they were amazing and that she should check them out, so she gave him an ultimatum.

Either stop with the sewer nonsense or she is done.

Louis and Jane had been together 6 years, and neither wanted to end things, so Louis agreed to stay out of the sewers if it meant keeping Jane in his life. 

Things had been going well for Louis and Jane for a month or so when one day Louis came home smelling like trash. She wanted to end this before it got worse so she scolded him, but he claimed he had just slipped on his way home. Jane was skeptical but let it slide.

The next night, Jane woke up and Louis was gone, and her first thought was the sewers, and she was right.

Louis had left a few hours before, with a bag he had secretly been preparing for a week or so. In it, he had flashlights, food, clothes, and other miscellaneous items. Louis was prepared for a journey and this journey had a mission. 

Just a month prior Louis would have thought that what he was going to do was absolutely insane, yet here he was. He had thought about how his opinion changed once he gave them a chance, and he wanted others to realize this as well. So tonight, his goal was to lure people into the sewers with the hopes of convincing them of it's wonders as well.

At first, he would often just whisper sweet nothings from the sewers directed towards people, and hope their curiosity would get the better of them, but he soon learned that wouldn't work.

Louis tried several more ideas before realizing that to get people into the sewers, they had to know the reasons why they were so great. After four straight days in the sewers, he waited until he heard voices overhead, and began his ascent to the surface level. He popped his head up and there was a single man walking by who saw Louis and nearly fell over in shock.

Louis was climbing out of the manhole, almost entirely black from everything that had stuck to him the last few days, and smelled like a garbage dump. Curiosity got the better of the man and he asked Louis what he was doing.

Louis looked at him and began talking about the sewers. He started speaking faster and faster, the excitement of getting another sewer person in the ranks, his mind moving faster than his lips could move.

Louis had been going on for a few minutes when he realized the man has slipped away unknowingly, and Louis returned to the sewers. He felt he had done a terrible job of convincing the man and aimed to try again with others, and so he did for the next month, until one day when he ran into the man he had tried to convince to enter the sewers, in the sewers.

Louis had convinced him, and the man had also had his eyes opened just as Louis had. 

That was the beginning. Louis and the man started spreading word, attempting to bring more and more people in, until we reach present day, where now there are thousands of residents who have abandoned their normal life to embrace a simple one.

The life of a sewer man.