Shenzhen Zen

That Smell
You'd think that the scent of a rotting corpse next door -- a stench one security guard told the coroner's court yesterday was so strong that he and his partner ''walked faster'' when they were patrolling that area -- might attract some attention, especially when it goes on for 10 days.
Not so at the apartment where Annie Pang died in July 1995 and where her skeleton with the skull in a bedroom trash can was found in October 1999 -- one day after her former lover had been in the small bedroom and claimed to have seen nothing.
Some testimony so far as bordered on absurd. The apt building honcho in charge of complaints and who had some dealings with Pang's lover John Fang has more or less lied regarding things like the smell (smell? what smell? nothing here folks, move on...) and at about least one phone conversation he and Fang had about selling the place.
Some has been comical. The next door neighbor, who along with his son said the odor wasn't enough to warrant a complaint: ''It was not extremely strong, like dead cockroaches -- not as smelly as a dead rat. ''
(What exactly does a dead cockroach smell like? I was dying to ask him about the subtle gradients of scent between a rotting rat and a rotting roach and how he knew.)
Some people did complain but why their complaints were ignored and now denied by the building's ombudsman is unclear at best. No one bothered to even knock on Annie's door or apparently put much thought into where she might be. ''We thought she'd moved,'' was the common song, though no one saw any furniture or other belongings hauled out and no one, it seems bothered to track down Fang.
One thing is clear, though. More than 10 years gone and it still stinks.