The Collapse CCIV: Habeas Corpus

 12 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

We had two surprises today.

The first – both a surprise as a blessing – is that Young Xerxes showed up at our house this morning. In snowshoes – garnered from the pairs that Pompeia Paulina had at her house. He brought a day that was both sunny and snowfall free with him, along with a second pair for me.

The second surprise – less welcome – was the news he brought. There was a body in the snow. A body no-one recognized.

Walking in snowshoes is a trick I had largely lost the talent for; at one time, Winter hikes were an occasional thing and having snowshoes was far superior to tramping through snow (to gain wet shoes) with the risk of postholing (sinking up to your knee or thigh) a risk. The picking up of my feet was not so bad after I got going; the fact I continue to look like a duck undoubtedly made for high comedy.

By the time I made it to the Post Office, there was a crowd of about a dozen or so – including, somewhat to my surprise, some of our erstwhile neighbors – gathered around an object leaned up against the building. Folks kindly cleared as I waddled my way forward.

Sure enough, it was a body.

It was a man – a very thin looking man, if the gauntness of his face was any indicator. His was curled up into a ball, lightly dusted with snow. He had what I would have considered “Summer gear” in these parts: jeans (cotton, become wet and damp easily), a long sleeve shirt with perhaps a layer or two beneath poking out, tennis shoes, and a beanie, and for some reason a beautiful gray cashmere scarf. No jacket, no gloves.

His extremities – fingers, nose, ears – were black with frostbite. His eyes – pale blue – were staring off into a distance that he could no longer see.

Someone pointed out that down the main road into town from the West, there were half covered footprints leading in. He had come then, sometime in the night before the snow had completely fallen, taking refuge against the post office (it is a large enough building in these parts and would have been fairly discernible – and died.

I scanned the crowd with raised eyebrows. People shook their heads all around: no-one recognized him.

There were two concerns in my mind at the moment. The first was any sort of transmissible disease that he might be carrying with him. The second was equally as pragmatic: with a huge dump of new snow, what were we going to do with the body?

I spoke sotto voce to Young Xerxes and off he went like a shot (well, really a snow-shoed shot) as the rest of us stood around. To keep people busy, I sent some of the younger folk down the road where his prints had come from to see how far they went. The rest of us waited, low mutterings around the circle punctuated by frosty clouds of breath.

Young Xerxes returned, bearing what I had asked for: Latex gloves. No sense in taking any risks. I put some on as he did and then, we pulled the body forward.

Only once have a touched a body in rigor mortis; it was as if I was moving a relatively solid piece of wood, not a body. The same was true here, with the caveat that in point of fact this was frozen wood. The sensation, even through the gloves, was not pleasant.

Keeping as much distance as we could manage, we “flipped” him over on the other side, like a fish in a pan that we were frying. This side was much colder and snow bound, of course. But nothing else was revealed.

His face and hands (from what I could see) bore no signs of obvious outbreak of sores or other skin outbreaks. I say “From what I could see”; I had no intention on bending closer to an unknown death.

Gingerly we felt around his pants and coat pockets. In one front pocket we found a Swiss Army knife stripped of its outer plastic siding, the metal parts exposed. There was a cell phone – probably dead now – with one of those wallet casing attachments on the back with some cards that I could not make out. Other than that, nothing: no rings, no jewelry, no weapons, no food.

An enigma.

Those I had sent off down the road came back; they said the trail had run straight down what was the old state highway from the West. Not a surprise, really – it was flat and one could relatively tell if one had gone off it.

Which, of course, left the body.

Three feet plus of snow and frozen ground does not lend itself a burial and just leaving a body around here might attract predators now looking for a meal or other sorts of predators later. It needed to move. I looked again to my energetic young friends: There was an oak about a half mile down the road; could they get the body there and place it? A discussion, 15 minutes later and a sled, and they were ready. Young Xerxes and I lifted the body up, instructed them to shovel a hole in the snow, and dump it in without touching it.

The crowd began to disperse, and even our Erstwhile former neighbors gave me a nod as they left. Young Xerxes and I waited until the burial party returned. It was easily 30 minutes; standing on the snow in snowshoes instead of in it mad for a better experience and after a week more or less inside, it was good to just stand outside.

Our young friends returned, reporting a successful mission. I suggested to Young Xerxes that we might go up there in a few days; given the nature of the Winter and animals about, I was of half a mind that the body would no longer be there.

I do not like mysteries, Lucilius. Especially the dead without explanation.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca