“Just go down there and take a look.”
My name is Ryan. I’m sixteen and one half years old and
I’ve never seen a dead body before.
“Don’t be a chickenshit. Go down there.”
My friend’s name is Richard. He’s older than myself but
by a scant few months. I don’t want to go down there
although I know Richard will most assuredly force me to
confront the specter of death at the bottom of the gully
we sometimes use as a shortcut to the high school.
“Patrick looked at it and he’s a puss.”
The sun has crested above the last line of clouded
defense, and the warmth of its rays cascading down upon my
exposed flesh provides instant splendor. I briefly close
my eyes to enjoy the beauty of the moment or is it to take
my mind off the dead body Richard is so keen on sharing
with me.
“You better go, Ryan or I’ll tell everyone you were a
freaking puss.”
I don’t doubt the sincerity in his words or the threat
that would render me to the lowes't of low lunchroom
tables and forever label me with the most hideous of all
juvenile titles.
“Go.”
A simple command from a simple person and yet I discover
myself stepping over the steel girder atop the
embankment. The loose rock and gravel shifts, my feet
unsteady as I begin the plunge headfirst into the frigid
grasp of death.
“Go all the way down, Ryan. Don’t you dare stop.”
The first thing I notice is the ripe stink of
decomposition, the acrid aroma that swirls about meat left
out in the hot sun. It reeks of rotting cabbage and foul
milk. My hand covers my nose as I slide down the steep
incline into the gully where I’ve traipsed back and forth
since exiting middle school. Everyday I take this walk,
my mind so familiar with the pathway that I’m able to
daydream without a single slip up on the slick surface
where muddy water meets gritty dirt. Unlike those
lackadaisical days of childhood adolescence, today I’m
forced to eye my every move.
“Are you going?”
I fail to answer his query; my mind focused on the
slippery mush beneath my tennis shoes and the dead body
awaiting me. Intuitively, with the charming clairvoyance
all children seem to possess, I know it is a man and he is
near. The cloud of flies is thick, impenetrable and
opaque like the deep waters of the nearby ocean. I swat
at them with indifferent hands, unafraid of their grazing
touch and the fury in which they confront my passing. My
eyes focus on the bushes, bushes I take for granted on a
daily basis although today I can see they contain within
them a macabre prize of the afterlife. The shrubbery and
all its details file themselves in my memory from the
white flowers so small they appear as fuzzy dots to the
empty Styrofoam cup hanging haphazardly from one branch.
I note these things and the hand as well.
“Do you see it yet?”
Richard’s voice reverberates throughout the entrenchment, riding on the wind like an inquisitive
message from the beyond. The hand, white and obscenely
bloated, draws all my attention, every ounce of my energy
as I study with a detachment I mastered in science class.
The nails are purple, the veins blue streaks that are
faint but visible and the knuckles can no longer be seen
due to the extension of skin from pent-up internal gases.
A sleeve, plaid and putrid, covers the wrist and
disappears into the green bush. Out of sight but not out
of mind, I creep forward on tiptoes. Perhaps I’m afraid
that I shall awake the dead and they will rush forward to
claim me as a prisoner of this age long war.
“Hurry up, Ryan.”
The arm extends further into the shrubbery and I’m forced
to push the branches, leaves and stickers aside to gain a
better view. A mop of hair, covered in a blue baseball
cap impedes my inspection although I do recognize the same
bloating in the abdominal region as in the hand. A
stick materializes in my grasp -I’m unable to recall how
it got there- and I push away the hat. The stabbing
movement of the discarded plant limb unveils the eyes of
the dead.
“Are you okay?”
Capturing me with their darkness, I am enraptured by the
black holes that draw in the nearest light with
unconcealed greed. Flecks of white pus line the lids and
a smattering of gorging flies screen the left eye more
than the right and yet it is the pits of nothingness that
hold me tight. The odor is potent, a veiled poltergeist
accompanying my visit to death’s doorway. The black
ocular orbs, frosted over with death’s dew, offer a
glimpse into the next world, the hidden dimension of the
afterlife we all fear. I am entranced, sucked up into the
black holes along with the warmth of the sweltering sun
above. These inky cavities have claimed me as their own.
“Ryan?”
Richard’s frightened cry awakes me from my stupor, my eyes ripping free from the dead man’s visage. The fear
that had chaperoned my journey leaps from its hiding place
and snags my undivided attention. My feet carry me with
such speed that I barely touch the ground as undiluted
adrenaline fuels my escape up the embankment. Richard is
waiting for me, his flushed countenance so naked that I
know he has not seen the dead man’s eyes for himself. He
has saved himself from their dark, penetrating glare.
“Did you see it?”
“Who’s the puss now, Richard?”
My words sound hollow, each syllable trembling with raw
fear because I know the black holes from below bid my
eventual return into their dark emptiness.
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