The Body
I saw them there, quiet and wondering, peering anxiously at the corpse spread out beneath the automobile, as though two great titans had battled to the death, and the victor, so exhausted by the battle, had fallen dead upon the loser. Their eyes seemed peaked with curiosity as they anticipated similar fates for themselves, and the eyes that would find them dead would be the same, each dry and filmed with a question just out of reach. As I paid my respects to the fallen hero, heroic, though his actions were recorded in his own memories and millions had not been privy to the quiet machinations of his existence, I tried to maintain neutrality and peer with a studious disdain for curiosity, yet lost the battle and wondered to myself if this was all that remained of so many dreams, actions and unrequited longings. As I stared with that blank glance that becomes the permanent expression of shell-shocked survivors and those that were not so lucky, a curious thing occurred, the corpse addressed me. His voice was not petulant or pleading as I would have anticipated, if it were possible to anticipate such an unlikely event, but even and stolid, as though this scene of pain and devastation were not his own but that of some unknown outsider and he was only here like the rest of us as a powerless bystander. He did not even bear the characteristic grisly interest in the fate of the un-interred tragedy that he was the principal part of, his was the accomplishment of cool nonchalance, and achieved rather than practiced disinterest. I must have seemed the fool that day, my lips blubbering uselessly, attempting unsuccessfully to describe this macabre vision in coherent discourse, but he was unperturbed with my seeming representation of the timeless idiot. He struggled a bit, as though to extricate himself from such a messy ordeal, but upon realizing the futility of his efforts seemed willing to remain beneath the fallen motorcar, as though he was merely enduring an unfortunate and uncomfortable place to remain rather than the end-result of calamity and mortality. Seeing that he would not be able to rise, he merely turned his head in my direction and began to speak. As though to shock me into joining his after-life plight through sheer absurdity he began by apologizing for his unnatural position and expressed his concern that I would not view it as a sign of disrespect. I must have produced some requisite sound for his searching face seemed content that I could fully comprehend that the predicament was not of his design. He smiled knowingly and then inclined his head so that I would draw closer, as though he would transmit to me some unspeakable secret of what he had learned. I drew closer and closer still, or I should say that my head surely moved though not in response to any commands from my flummoxed brain, which seemed thoroughly content to rail soundlessly against this ghastly scenario and was yet powerless to intercede. As he brought his mouth and bloodless lips within mere inches of my outstretched ear he told me these things...
You are dead, why else would you be in the company of the dead, you seek nothing and know nothing. I live more fully than
you. Fly from here and never stop again, until you can be sure you are alive in mind and body.
I began to withdraw when all at once a limb filled with power from beyond the grave grasped my skull, and over the thunderous throbbing of my temples whispered...
Before long you will become what you despise.
Then as a dream withdrawing from the waking dreamer reality reasserted itself. The specter I had just conversed with was no more alive than the mangled machine which lay across him or the blood-stained asphalt that temporarily housed his last remains. The crowd parted and a policeman cruelly pushed me back out of the way with an admonishment that curiosity killed the cat, and while no killing might be done, he would be more than willing to see me spend a week in the lockup for some imagined digression or another. As I backed unbelieving from the wreckage I whispered back, unheard but by myself and perhaps the creature that so recently departed a second time, “but satisfaction brought him back”, what did I reference here, the cat or the corpse, I know not and will god-willing never learn.
I never stop anymore at the numerous sites of grisly wonderment that are the wreckage of an automobile. They sit surrounded not by the festive yellow tape but by the ominous red police line, that it is wordlessly agreed will not be crossed. A thin line of plastic separates us from those unfortunate dead, as I believe now a thin veil separates our minds from theirs, but to draw too close might be to risk catastrophe and cruel experience again. I don't know why the so recently departed held on to this world with such tenacity, but I haven't stopped yet, ever-heeding his advice, perhaps when I may stop and have become what I despise I will better understand what kind of man would rend eternity just to lend a stranger his words.
You are dead, why else would you be in the company of the dead, you seek nothing and know nothing. I live more fully than
you. Fly from here and never stop again, until you can be sure you are alive in mind and body.
I began to withdraw when all at once a limb filled with power from beyond the grave grasped my skull, and over the thunderous throbbing of my temples whispered...
Before long you will become what you despise.
Then as a dream withdrawing from the waking dreamer reality reasserted itself. The specter I had just conversed with was no more alive than the mangled machine which lay across him or the blood-stained asphalt that temporarily housed his last remains. The crowd parted and a policeman cruelly pushed me back out of the way with an admonishment that curiosity killed the cat, and while no killing might be done, he would be more than willing to see me spend a week in the lockup for some imagined digression or another. As I backed unbelieving from the wreckage I whispered back, unheard but by myself and perhaps the creature that so recently departed a second time, “but satisfaction brought him back”, what did I reference here, the cat or the corpse, I know not and will god-willing never learn.
I never stop anymore at the numerous sites of grisly wonderment that are the wreckage of an automobile. They sit surrounded not by the festive yellow tape but by the ominous red police line, that it is wordlessly agreed will not be crossed. A thin line of plastic separates us from those unfortunate dead, as I believe now a thin veil separates our minds from theirs, but to draw too close might be to risk catastrophe and cruel experience again. I don't know why the so recently departed held on to this world with such tenacity, but I haven't stopped yet, ever-heeding his advice, perhaps when I may stop and have become what I despise I will better understand what kind of man would rend eternity just to lend a stranger his words.