I see thousands of people a day, every day. Must have seen a million by now. Strangers, forgotten as soon as they pass. A body in the water; now that's something I won't forget. One of my favorite stories is The Body, by Stephen King, and then the movie based on it, Stand by Me. Some kids hear about a dead body by the railroad tracks and go on a trek to find it. They find it, but the result of the discovery is far from what they imagined.
There is something surreal surrounding a corpse. It looked looked a mannequin at first, floating face up against some rocks at the bottom of a twenty foot high sea wall. Then, as the recovery progressed, and I got closer, and eventually stood over him on dry land, the body became a human being, and I saw the features, and noticed the clothes, and the jewelry, and began to wonder what went wrong.
I’ve lived my adult life by the water-different waters but always within a mile or so of my home, there’s big water. With big water come floaters. Some fresh, some unrecognizable; some heartbreaking while others seem justified…
We came from the sea and I think some people need to go back in a very primordial way.
Thankfully that is one form of death I have not experienced. Makes my stomach knot up to think about it…..