Corpse

I was fourteen years old when I saw my first corpse.

His face was pale and mottled blue, his eyes were closed, his lips and
nails were purple.

He lay on the pavement as stiff as a board.

"Christ ," breathed Harry. "Christ, look at it."

I didn't want to but I looked anyway. I couldn't stop looking. I knelt
down. I looked closer.

His mouth was relaxed, his skin smooth, and wet with rain, there were
no frown lines on his forehead, he had fine high cheekbones and a wide
mouth. In life, he would have had one of those faces that flickered
between beauty and ugliness. In death, he just looked strange,
ghoulish. His dark hair was plastered to his head, I knelt closer
still.

"What're you doing?"

"Looking."

"Whatever for?" Harry said harshly. He'd been so keen to show me the
corpse. He'd been so proud, he'd dared me to look at it, thinking it
would scare me, but really he was more scared of it than I was. "Come
on. Lets go."

I said nothing. I reached out and touched the forehead.

Ice cold. I drew my hand back quickly.

"What the hell are you doing?" Harry's voice was getting higher.

"I'm not scared of a dead man," I muttered.

I ran my hand through the hair, unsticking it from his face, ignoring
the coldness of his skin against mine. My eyes blurred with
tears.

"'Course I'm not scared," gabbled Harry, taking my statement as a
taunt. He kicked the corpse hard in the stomach. There was a dull thud.
I flinched.

"Don't do that!" my words came out shrill in my ears. Tears streamed
down my cheeks suddenly, effortlessly.

"Why not? He's dead! He can't feel it," but I heard the edge of
guilt.

I stared at the face again, I imagined the eyes flickering open.

"Just don't! Okay?" my voice cracked.

Harry peered around at me, I wiped the tears away hurriedly.

"Hey, you're crying," he was suddenly heavy with concern.

I nodded, I smoothed the hair back off the forehead again. I
sobbed.

I felt Harry's arms slip around my waist from behind, he pulled me up
gently. "Don't cry. Come on, let's go. Don't cry," he said into my ear,
he guided me away.

I still resisted, I turned my head and looked back at the corpse, lying
all alone in the wet gutter, his hair messed up from where I'd run my
fingers through it.

"Who's going to bury him?" I asked.

"Somebody will. Come on. Look, I'm sorry, I should never have taken you
here,"

My head span, my heart was lead, my stomach was ice. A shudder went
through me, followed by another, and another.

Harry held me tighter, he was shaking too, soon I couldn't tell if it
was him or me.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I'm so sorry?"

I just stared at the ground and tried to stop the world from
shifting.

I felt like I was the dead one.