The Hanged Man

I found his body hanging in a grove of pine trees as the light filtered down from the wooded canopy deep in the dense forest far outside town. He had tightened the noose around his neck and jumped from the highest branch that would not snap under his weight. He was a dedicated man to the end. Had the branch been too thin or the rope too loose, he would have crashed to the ground bruised and shaken but alive.

That would simply not do.

He had bought strong rope and tied the noose carefully. He had chosen a sturdy tree with thick ancient branches that had probably supported generations of black bears climbing its limbs to reach the honeybee hives at the top. This would be done right, a quick short 'snap!' No lingering, gasping death at the bottom of a bottle of pills, no messy gun blowing out the back of his head for someone else to clean up, no bloated drowned corpse washing up outside the tallest bridge in town; only a quick clean death would do.

Why he picked such a remote location I've never been sure. Maybe he simply wanted his body to never be found. To erase his existence off the face of the earth; hoping that no one would remember he was ever here. Wiping their memories clean of his fastidious but pointless life. Even for the event of his own death, he wore a carefully pressed suit with a equally carefully knotted tie and carefully shined shoes. I think he was a careful man in life and thus planned his death with equal attention to detail.

I sat among the sun dappled pine needles and woodland grass and stared into his glassy eyes. The dead hold more truth than the living ever will. I lifted my eyes to heaven and let the drifting clouds fill my vision. I felt the late summer sun dance over my face. The wind carried the gentle rustling of rush weeds and the twittering of small brown sparrows hunting for beetles in the thorn bushes. A small stream babbled a gurgling song near by and crickets chirped a chorus of longing across the fields.

I stood and turned to walk away. When I looked back his mouth fell open and a mass of shiny newly born black flies flicked their wings open for the first time and took flight into the sweltering swarming heat.

I was right. There is no more truth than this. With that parting thought, I put one foot in front of the other and walked back home.

"Then later on that day about a quarter mile out of town,
I found his body hanging in a grove of pines, swaying in the wind.
And as he swang that rope sang another hymn to Jesus,
And this time though I don't know why,
I somehow felt inclined to sing along." Still Waters, Jim White