Story 20
The Story of the First Time I Saw a Dead Body
The first time I ever saw a dead body was when I was in third grade.
I used to walk to and from school along a narrow path that ran beside a cliff by the river — so narrow that cars couldn’t pass through. Since it was deep in the countryside, hardly anyone ever used that road.
It was lined with tall, overgrown trees, full of bugs, and honestly, I never liked it. So I always ran through that stretch as fast as I could.
That day was no different — just a normal route to school.
I remember it was a Monday.
At the base of an especially large tree, I noticed a pair of men’s sneakers left there carelessly. They were dirty, so I figured someone must’ve thrown them away, and I just walked past without thinking much of it.
Then, on my way home…
The sneakers were still there — in the exact same spot.
And above them, far above my head, I saw a pair of feet in gray socks.
I didn’t understand what I was looking at.
I stepped back and looked up. From my height — about 135 centimeters at the time — maybe a meter above me, there was a man hanging from the tree.
A small, middle-aged man in a suit, dangling from a branch.
I wasn’t scared.
I just thought, I need to tell an adult. So I ran to the police box that was closer than my house and explained what I’d seen.
An officer immediately put me in a patrol car, and we headed back toward the place. We got out and ran down the riverside path until I showed him where the man was hanging.
The man had climbed quite high up that rough, uneven tree trunk in just his socks.
I still remember the policeman’s first words:
“How did he manage to climb up that high…?”
I guess, if you really tried, it wouldn’t be impossible — but still.
And it didn’t make sense that he had come all that way wearing such filthy sneakers, the kind with the heels crushed down, even though he was dressed in a suit.
That man — who had hanged himself — was the first dead body I ever saw.
