True story.

My now-wife, my son, and I all showered and brushed our teeth and cooked with dead squirrel water for about a week.

We were living in a small community in South India, in a very simple house that was off the grid—with solar panels and a 500-liter water tank in the back that was filled by a diesel-run pump.

I started smelling something weird while showering, but it was very subtle, like a distant odor that you can’t really place.

“Do you smell something in the shower?” I said to my now-wife.

“Hmm. Maybe… not sure…” she answered.

This went on for some days, with the smell growing increasingly foul every day.

I couldn’t take it any more.

“I’m going to go climb up the water tower at the back and take a look inside the tank,” I said.

“Okay, just be careful…”

So I went outside, climbed up the tower, and opened the lid of the tank.

I gagged. Out came the most putrid, fetid, reeking stench I had ever smelled in my life. It took all of my will power to prevent myself from throwing up. It was like rotten, decaying death. It was like all that is wrong and terrible in life condensed into an evil miasma.

I looked inside.

The whole surface of the water was covered by a thick film of slime, and floating in the center was the outspread skeletal structure of a squirrel

All of the flesh and sinews and muscles had completely dissolved, but there were still a few tufts of fur floating around.

It was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen. And even though around four years have passed, I can feel the urge to vomit in the back of my throat as I write.

I went back and told my now-wife. She was mortified.

“Thank god we haven’t been drinking that water!” she said.

We both looked at our baby boy, who was crawling around on the floor, and now gazed back at us with innocent eyes.

Who knows what could have happened to him had he consumed the water unboiled…

I called a guy I knew who came by and cleaned it. I kept thanking him and telling him how sorry I was, but he just smiled and said he was glad to help.