Four Views of the Dead

I’ve seen at least four dead bodies in my life. The first one was when I was six or seven years old. My family were driving home from a funeral when we got into an car accident. There was a van driving on the wrong side of the highway. Headed directly towards us. The car in front of ours, swerved out of the way but we weren’t so lucky.

One moment I was lost in the repetitive clacking of the tires on the concrete, the next thing I’m being thrown around in the back of the station wagon like a marble. Our car slammed head-on into the oncoming vehicle. Our family had mild injuries due to the bulk of our car, but the oncoming van was demolished. We got out of our car as the traffic behind us slowly filed past and stared at the wreckage.

My parents told me not go over and look at the other car, but they got lost in doing whatever they were doing. So of course I went to see what happened. In the other car a man in a hospital robe was smashed behind his steering wheel. The front windshield was shattered. Glass was spread all over the ground. He wasn’t moving at all just sitting there leaking blood. I couldn’t believe anyone would allow me to see this but everyone else seemed lost in their own world of confusion. What stuck with me the most was his face just staring at me.

Children tend to stare at unusual things like a person with an injury or a physical impairment. As we grow older we are taught that it’s rude to stare, but children don’t do it with a judgmental nature. They are seeing oddities for the first time, and are merely trying to comprehend the strangeness of what they’re witnessing. As I stood and stared into the mangled face of the other driver, I was trying to comprehend it, but lacking the necessary words and ideas I didn’t know what to feel. I didn’t really understand life and death at the time so I didn’t feel sad or scared. Only confused and guilty. As if I was somehow I was responsible.

Number Two

The second time I saw a dead body was after the first semester of college. I returned to my hometown excited to see some old friends again. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to see all of them.

A few hours after I made it back, my brother came home and told me my friend had hung himself the previous night. I clearly remember the image of myself sitting on the side of the couch as he shared the news. My brother along with my mother just stared at me. I felt like an animal in the zoo. No comforting hugs, no cliches, no condolences. Just ice cold stares. It was like two strangers watching me just waiting to see what I’d do as if I was a science experiment. I didn’t give them any satisfaction of showing emotion and I just walked away.

A few days later I attended the viewing. A cold, wintery day set the mood we all felt inside. The ceremonies surrounding a suicide are entirely different than those of someone who lived a long life. An entire community in mourning. People guilting themselves about what they could have or should have done.

At the viewing I saw a dead body for the second time. Eyes closed, hands crossed he looked like himself and he looked like a facsimile of himself at the same time. His wounds were hidden and he looked serene albeit a little bloated. We hadn’t seen each other in a few months and it was disheartening to know this was the last image I’d have of him. There’s something like an uncanny valley when looking at a dead body. It looks like the person you knew. The features are the same, the shape is the same, but there’s something missing. That something missing gives the corpse an eerie, hollow feeling that mirrored what I felt inside.

After the funeral ended, everyone dispersed like smoke from the incense. A couple of friends and I stayed a little longer. Two grave diggers were getting ready to do their job. It didn’t feel right to let our friend be buried by himself. So we waited and watched as they lowered his coffin into the ground and filled up the hole one shovel of dirt at a time. That seemed to be more cathartic and real than the ceremony.

Number Three

The third dead body I saw was that of Vladimir Lenin. The circumstances couldn’t have been any different. There wasn’t any connection or intense emotional experience involved. I was in Moscow and I wanted to do what the tourists do. Seeing a corpse was on that list.

Like the last time, it was a grey day in winter. The cold rain was coming down softly and the Red Square was devoid of the usual crowds. In the past there might have been people queued up for hours to pay their respects, but today it was only me.

The squat structure made of red and black granite sat under the shadow of the tall brick walls of the Kremlin. It’s dark entrance was foreboding and unwelcoming. The interior walls were made of black polished stone. A jagged line of red stone cut across the walls. It was a barren, stoic design, but that red line gave the room a weird vibe. It felt forced and out of place. The space itself could have easily been a VIP room at a club in Las Vegas instead of a mausoleum.

In the center of the tomb was the shriveled corpse of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. Maybe he was short or maybe laying in a tomb for eighty years shrinks a body. Under glass and lit with an ethereal, warm light, he looked peaceful just like my friends dead body. Lenin’s face was adorned with his characteristic moustache and beard. His hands laid awkwardly on the waist of his black suit. The soft lighting gave an other worldly quality to the scene. He looked like a ghost or a hologram. Half in this world and half in another. He certainly looked like an anachronism that felt out of place in this century.

The walkway made a U shape around the center of the glass coffin in the room affording one a glimpse of his body from all angles. I was the only visitor in the room. Just myself, Lenin and two surly Russian guards standing solidly in the shadowed corners of the room. Their stern faces and rifles lit up by the soft glow.

Was this a room for reflection? A place to pay respects? I choose the former as I didn’t have much connection to the historical significance of Lenin. It was hard to imagine this little corpse as the architect of grave atrocities. I stood with my hands on the railing looking at the body while remembering the suicide of my friend. My emotions were still buried deep inside even after twelve years, but seeing another dead body couldn’t help but remind me of seeing his. I tried to dig up feelings but they were locked away. It would take more than a shriveled up stranger to awaken the feelings of life that I buried all those years ago.

I walked out of the dark black room into the cold rain. I checked that tourist hot spot off my list and I headed off to see St. Basils cathedral. The memory of Lenin, just like my friend, placed back into the confines of my memory. Stored for processing at a later date.

Number Four

The fourth dead body was in New York city on a beautiful spring day. The type of warm day that invites people to go outside and enjoy the fresh air. The sidewalks were filled with people coming and going. A nice view from the median strip in the middle of Park Avenue looked like the perfect place to draw.

After about an hour of sketching, a police officer came up and asked what I was doing. I showed him my sketch and we proceeded to talk for a bit. Suddenly a loud screeching of tires broke our conversation. We instinctually turned and looked across the street to see a car, less than thirty feet away, squealing it’s tires as it slammed into the side of another car then proceeded to push both cars onto the side walk.

Unlike the previous memories of death, where the bodies were still and frozen, this animated scene stayed with me in a more direct way. It was like a train wreck that you can’t stop looking towards. Once I saw what was happening, I tried to look away. In a split second I already knew I didn’t want to see this happening. People are only made up of what they see and do. I didn’t want these images to be part of me, but it was too late.

Although I tried to turn my head, I didn’t look away fast enough to stop the scene from being etched into my memory forever. The loud sound of crunching metal. Shards of glass hanging frozen in the air. The christmas like jingle glass makes as it shatters. The slow lurching of the cars over the curb into the crowd. Arms holding shopping bags stretched outward in unnatural angles. Weightless bodies suspended in the air. Bodies crushed into the side of the building. Every aspect frozen in vivid details.

A split second later, when I eventually turned my head away, I looked at the face of the police officer. The color instantly fell away from his face to be replaced with a ghostly white pale. His eyes widened. His body slouched. A look of resignation and horror surrounded him. His whole body sighed with the realization of what was unfolding. Just as fast as his countenance turned to horror, he suddenly jerked upright. His eyes narrowed with determination and he sprang into action and sprinted over to the chaos.

It was remarkable to see the changes a person can go through so quickly. One moment his eyes are light with jovial conversation, then utter horror followed by determination. It all happened in microseconds.

Just a moment ago people were walking along a street like everyone else in the city simply enjoying a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Then they weren’t. I gathered up my belongings and walked away. I didn’t want to gawk and add to the already burgeoning size of the onlookers. A fog fell over my mind as I fought the crowd walking in the opposite direction. I felt the body of people brushing past me walking fast towards the incident. I heard people curious to see what happened, asking questions to each other or talking on their phones eager to share dramatic news.

A half block later, I turned a corner and everything was calm. The city was the same as it had always been. Happy people walking having inconsequential conversations, couples holding hands, people with shopping bags. No one realized what happened a half a block away. It was surreal to witness something so horrific so close and then to be whisked away into another peaceful world a mere block away. The calm feeling of a beautiful afternoon surrounded me but I felt alone, out of place and fragile.

Those were the only times I’ve seen dead people so far.

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