THE BODY

THE BODY
　
This morning I have discovered a corpse, lying half submerged in wet autumn leaves on Ealing Common. The man that it has been for perhaps fifty years before is thin, bald and short. It is an alarming site. I had thought it was perhaps a drunk sleeping. I had supposed from fifty or so yards that it was all manner of things save a dead body. But it is. It is!
I have nudged him too vigorously for there to have been no response and orated as many verbal prompts in vain.
The situation has registered and my adrenaline has began to flow. As my realisation develops my alarm increases.
He was lying face down, I grabbed two slippery vinyl wads of his ill-firing anorak and laid him on his back revealing a site that caused my alarm to increase further. Fowl play! Murder! An oval pool of crimson blood on his upper chest plate. As a result of my having moved his position the bright blood dripped copiously onto his gaunt and chiselled throat.
His eyes are shut, his expression peaceful, his life over.
Whose Father was this? Whose Son? Whose employee? And in what part of London was the dingy council flat that contained his loved ones who by now would be baffled by his absence?
Perhaps not London, perhaps not a man in alignment to any of these contemplations except whose Son? Once he was a child and before that a baby. An innocent, soft ,delicate baby without knowledge of this world nor expectations of the aspects within it that can and do lead to an event like the one that has occurred here this morning.
I do not know if this Man has been shot or stabbed. It amazed me how many times, that in one way or another I would forget that he was positively beyond revival. But he was, he really was.
The taste and mood of this situation was so much more vile than the mood and taste of fiction’s portrayal of such like, and the people of this world, myself included, turn on television sets and watch such portrayals quite regularly for entertainment. What can we be thinking? On television the blows are cushioned by the cleverly edited sound track music and distorted into sensationalism with the all to familiar (goodies-badies )ethic. Reaping the viewers emotions into (being with our hero all the way) so to speak, and revelling in this thing called vengeance. From ‘Aces High’ to ‘Jack the Ripper’ there has been success in transforming something quite awful into something acceptable. This is what a dead man really looks like These are the inane and terrifying colours of a murder. His drams, his nostalgia, his imagination, his love, his anticipation, his humour, his vitality, his plans, his aura…….Extinguished His curiosity, his hope, his understanding, his relief and his perception. ……..Terminated! . And anything you and I can feel he feels no more, or is this not what death is? We do not know, but can we afford to speculate? No, we flee from danger.
So who has committed this vile act? Was it an act of justice? Looking down at him now it is difficult to believe there is such a thing. It is horrible and that is all that matters and I would much rather have found him sleeping this morning but he is not asleep.
As for dignity that he supposedly like the majority of us that dress half as proud attempt to retain through our lives, ,what is there in his current physical position?
A stone’s throw from The Uxbridge Road, that is buzzing with a potentially shallow and disapproving audience. It matters not one jot to him now, and yet I feel embarrassed for him. Embarrassed and upset, though its so obvious to say so I reiterate upset!
What inspirations may be drawn from this ghastly affair? Perhaps to reassess the value of each breath of life? each gift of being? each sweet moment? The ones we ought spend wiser?
And now the police must be informed with haste, that I may not be wrongly tied to this deed!
With nausea and a psychological feeling of dishevelment, I make an awkward, rather asymmetrical trot for the phone box.
　
　
TIM SANSOM 14TH SEPTEMBER 1992