curtains to peek outside. He tried to place his thoughts anywhere, anywhere other than that dead
terrible thing with its eyes.
In another life, when he was young, John may have felt differently. There may have been
compassion in his heart, and courage. Even some deeper understanding of this experience. But
time had taken away more than it had given and John felt helpless as a newborn child.
When the doorbell rang his heart jumped in his chest. A long cone of ash had developed on the
end of his cigarette, from which he had not smoked for nearly a minute. It tumbled onto his pants
and John grumbled and swept at the embers. The doorbell rang a second time.
The officers wore the same bored look John had imagined on the face of the woman he'd spoken
to on the phone. Inexpressive masks of boredom. Their grey flesh looked so tired, it barely held
to the bone. They slowly looked around John's house at the clutter of books and ashtrays
overflowing. They exchanged a glance that bothered John but he said nothing. He felt
embarrassed, but he had not been expecting any of this! He composed himself as best he could
and ushered the two police officers through the back door and into the yard. But when he opened
the door and looked out towards the tree, there was no man hanging. The dead man in the tree
was gone. The tangle of rope he had used to kill himself was nowhere to be seen. "You trying to
be funny, pal?" one of the officers asked John angrily. "I swear he was here! I swear it! I would
never call in...I swear the man was here, dead as can be and swinging from that very
branch!"John thrust an accusing finger towards the low branch of oak from which the man had
dropped into death."Well, unless he got up and moved by himself, it sounds to me like you're
either nuts or you think it's funny to waste our time. Either way, I think we're done here. Next
time you call it better be with a real complaint or we'll just take you in with us. I better report this
before more of us get duped into showing up. We got other bodies to haul off today, you know
that? Real bodies."
For several