I just read something another site about the first time the author saw a dead body. Because it's 12.50 am, I'm going discuss the same.
This was not the first time I had seen a dead body, however. I had seen at least one, maybe more, before. But Jaysis, this was the first time I really saw death.
Don't keep reading if you get upset easily.
It was early, early morning, somewhere around 7.00. It was either spring or fall - the kind of morning where everything is crisp but not yet cold. Sometimes on these kinds of mornings, things are very quiet - even in a big city like Paris. It's a bit like the silence after a snowfall.
My recollection tells me that I was with someone - Cristina maybe - but I honestly can't say if this is true. Whoever I was or wasn't with, I know I was following one of my typical routes. I rounded the corner from the back alley near the rue des Lombards, on my way to the metro stop at La Place Saint Opportune. It's a nice little plaza, surrounded by old Parisian buildings. During the day, people sit out on the terrace of a cafe on the corner and tourists buy postcards from the shop opposite.
Nobody was out that day. It was so calm I remember thinking it was nice to be out before everyone hits the streets. I also remember feeling very awake and refreshed, which was a rare thing for me early mornings when I was 20.
As I came around the corner, I took two steps and stopped dead in my tracks.
There was a man lying there, an open window above him, his head split open. A pool of blood was collecting around his head... it was about three feet in diameter by the time I saw him. His body was twisted, but it looked just like he was sleeping. One leg was hiked up, crooked at the knee. His head was set on the pavement as if it were a pillow.
How should one react when they see that? He was obviously dead. There was hardly anybody around. One of the few people was on her cell phone, calling for help.
I stared for a moment and tried to process what had happened. I made myself useless and noticed details. Maybe the brain doesn't know what else to do. I saw the blood swirling with the pavement, and I wondered why he was wearing a bomber jacket. One hand was under him, the other outstretched as if it tried to break the fall. He had only come from two floors up. He probably could have survived if he had hit the pavement differently.
And then I did a funny thing. I just left. I walked over to the metro stop a few feet away and shook it off.
Apparently, I also repressed the memory, because I hadn't thought of it since, until Kathypath brought it up last night. Now it keeps coming back in loops.
I decided to come to your site to see what was up in the life of Lee (and to change the pace of what I was reading), after just finding out that two video game remixers whose music I have listened to died in the past year (one who my friends and I fondly would refer to in the past, since he was one of the first on the net to do it), and then I read this and I feel a wave of sadness. I'm not sure if it's a message or coincidence that I read about death two sites in a row (both unintentional), but it certainly gets me thinking and realizing that life is short and fragile for all, and shorter and more fragile for some.
Anyhow, that must have been one of the worst things in the world to see, you describe it so vividly, I could picture this man.