Little blue tents
A woman was found dead in her hotel room on Orchard Road. I read it in the news this morning.
She died from unnatural causes. No foul play is suspected. Police investigations are ongoing.
Sometimes, reading the news can be like deciphering code. That one is code for suicide.
Apparently this happens sometimes. A person goes to a nice hotel, a place they couldn’t normally afford, to have their last hours. I’ve never thought of that before. Going to a hotel, I mean. Seems kinda inconsiderate. You know your body will be found by some lowly paid maid, and now she has the trauma of that.
But there doesn’t seem to be many other options. Someone has to be the one to find your body. The woman was a mother. Better a stranger than your own child, I guess.
I’m walking home. It’s early afternoon. Hot, but not raining. Which is nice, I guess. I look up. Tall buildings rise around me. The sky blue above. It should be beautiful.
I don’t see beauty.
I see not the sky, but the cage around it.
I see not the height of the buildings, but the drop down.
A case of a fall from height. Foul play not suspected. That one’s code for suicide by jumping from a high building.
The blue sky reminds me of the little blue tent that follows such a jump. A blue tent with the word POLICE printed on it. A blue tent to shield the view of the body.
There’s a report of a case of fall from height nearly every week now. There’s a record in the papers. The block number. Man or woman. The age. It’s printed. Then forgotten. Discarded with the rest of yesterday’s news. Except by those left to mourn, of course. If the blue tents remained like a monument, the city would be dotted with them.
But they don’t, of course. They go when the bodies do.
But, that’s not me. I’m not going to end up in one of those blue tents. Not now, anyway.
I say that like I know. And, I think, I do know. But it wasn’t always so. How did I get from that place to this? Well first, let me tell you about the ice cream.
