The Hanged Man
Christopher Flakus
John awoke to find a hanged man in the backyard. He first noticed him as he was brushing his
teeth. The bathroom window on the second story of his home overlooked the backyard where he
had a large oak tree growing and also a small garden where he had planted tomatoes and parsley.
The man was swinging from a low, sturdy branch of the oak tree in John's backyard. It was one
of the deciding factors that lead him to buy the house. The tree had a certain…life, a strange kind
of personality which he enjoyed. As for the dead man, his face was blue and his lips swollen and
even from up in the bathroom John noticed the eyes bulging out from his lifeless face. What does
one do in this situation? John thought to himself, just as he spat out a mouthful of toothpaste suds
into the dark marble sink. He must call the police. Yes, and that would be that. John supposed
things like this must happen all the time. He knew things like this happened. And now it had
happened in his backyard.
John lived alone and so he made himself breakfast and coffee before making any calls. After all,
the man wasn't going anywhere and there seemed to be no harm in having breakfast as he would
have on any other morning. The broken tile in the kitchen crunched audibly under his slippers.
He could not help but part the blinds once or twice as his eggs sputtered in the pan, and peek out
at the swinging man in his backyard.
Phoning the police was not difficult at all. The woman on the other line showed no emotion as
John described the dead man he had found. "Probably just some vagrant. This has been a
particularly cold winter and it was probably just too much for him, right?" John asked her."Hard
to say why, sir. But we'll send a patrol out right away sir. They should arrive in a few minutes."
For a moment his heart raced and John felt as if he should call someone else. Maybe his sister,
Margaret? No, she would probably just find it grim. Besides, he had not spoken with her in over
a year and it would seem odd to call up with such news. Still, he wished there was someone he
could call. It seemed like he finally had something to tell. He finally had something worth
saying. John had not gotten a close look at the man, and decided to go downstairs and see the
corpse before the police arrived. To have a look for himself. After all, it was his backyard the
man had decided to end his life in. It seemed somehow proper they should meet alone, just once,
before they came and took him wherever it was they were going to take him. The City Morgue,
perhaps. Where he would be prepped and buried off somewhere in a grave that most likely would
never be visited by anyone. How awful, John thought to himself.
It was a cold day outside, although the rain had subsided. There were dark black puddles of
water strewn across the yard like dead eyes. Only the dead man's eyes were different. Equally
dark, equally dead. But they glared out at John as if they were accusing him of something.
Standing there, under the swaying body of that dead man, John felt judged as if by God himself.
As if he were the one who had hung that man up there. As if it were a murder he'd
committed.Those eyes, they seemed to scream: "It was you!" John stepped back into a muddy
spot of earth and felt the cold of water soak up his pant-leg. He had the distinct feeling that the
corpse was amused by this. As if it were laughing at him. John trudged upstairs, trailing mud,
and lit a cigarette by the window. He sat and waited for the police. He would no longer part the
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