I saw a dead body tonight.
It's not the first time I've seen one and I don't know if I was upset, although I was certainly shocked. I've seen a few dead bodies before- mostly family members-and have not seen a lot of dead bodies "in the wild" so to speak.
This one was a man outside of my gynecologist's office. Ironic, right? There was one young EMT covering the body up. My immediate reaction was so inappropriate. I just started laughing. It occurred to be how absurd it was for me to be standing there, drinking a smoothie, starting at a dead person. One the sidewalk. In The Sunset. In broad day light. On my way to get birth control pills.
I walked into the building feeling a little stunned and not yet sad. Mostly I just realized that I don't want to die alone on a sidewalk. I thought about how lonely it would be, the last thing you see a nail salon, or maybe a meter maid.
I reached out and texted someone, felt better, had a conversation, tried to distract myself with a magazine. When I laid back on the doctor's table I stared up into the ceiling, past it into the sky and up into the clouds. I hope I die somewhere I loved.
The Internet is leaking.
22 hours ago
2 comments:
Hm. Lots of death everywhere i look these days, it seems. Must be a swell. i hope it goes away soon. Can't take much more.
Anyway, sorry you had to experience it, too. i wonder what the person's story was? No one knows when their time is up, i suppose.
(...Man, i'm deep.)
A reporter friend of mine called me to eat lunch with him after having to get the what for on a gunshot victim in a nearby mall.
While we ate hamburgers and french fries no more than 300 yards from where they were removing her corpse.
He confided in me that it was self inflicted. She parked her car, walked to the middle of the parking structure and shot herself in the chest.
We made crude jokes to avoid the uncomfortable feelings this experience dredged up.
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