A few days ago I saw, for the first time, a dead body.
I didn't intend to look at it, not because I wasn't curious, but because I somehow expected my first time watching a dead body to be a little bit more... glamorous, whatever that means.
Once I dreamt I was in a wooden cabin in the forest. There was a lovely old man. The cabin was very very tall, and inside there was a mezzanine, from which the old man jumped killing himself because the ceilings were so high that it was impossible to clean them. Since then, I never quite liked very high ceilings: they're out of reach, which can obviously lead into suicidal behaviours. Last night I dreamt that I was in a beautiful Mediterranean island. All my friends were there with me, in the high-ceiling wooden hostel, but they wouldn't wait for me while I went to the room to change into my swimming suite, and they went to the beach without me.
I started crying. I wanted to go with them but I didn't know where they were. So, I started walking through a nice sunny garden, where there were turtles hiding behind the flowers, probably. Waking through the garden I reached the main street, the one next to the ocean, and I sat on an outdoor table of a nice coffee shop. I could have been Italy, or Spain. The outside tables were small and round, made of a metal structure that supported a round decorated tiled stone.
As usual, I had my guitar with me, so I started playing. All the people inside the coffee shop were old and they looked like they were from the neighbourhood, definitely not tourists. The door was open, so they could hear me playing, which made me a little nervous and insecure. In addition, my guitar was out of tune. I never knew how to tune it properly... I should definitely learn. I tried to do it, in the dream, but the instrument started bending and breaking apart, which made it extra difficult.
Anyway... the dead body.
I knew there was a dead body even before looking at it. I was walking down Kentish Town Road, going to the restaurant, as usual. I saw the ambulance. I saw the people stopping to look. I heard the sights. So I knew.
I don't like being the kind of people that stops and stares at an accident, so I just kept on walking... but I couldn't help it. I took a squint.
There they were. The two paramedics were putting the dead body of the young woman on the stretcher. There was no question she was dead. Her face was so grotesque as one could possibly imagine the face of a dead person: eyes and mouth wide open, tongue out.
I only saw it for an instant, it was literally less that one second. Even tough, the impression still remains. I never stopped walking. Next to me, the big Jamaican man was walking at the same pace.
"I am starting to believe I am the Angel of Death," he was saying. "Everywhere I go there's a person ran over, an accident, a stroke...". He wasn't talking to anyone in particular, but I turned to him and said: "Well, mate, you're starting to scare me a little bit...".
We talked for a little bit, walking down Regent's Canal to our respective jobs. He worked at the Camden food Market, of course. I don't remember his name. I didn't find him interesting at all. One minute he was talking about death, next minute he was telling me how much he would like to be my boyfriend, without even knowing my name.
