Today a Hearse Arrived at the House Across the Street

I don’t like to think about death. But it surrounds us, and from time to time, it shows itself.

Photo by Guy Basabose on Unsplash

About half an hour ago, my wife looked out the living room window and called me.

“Is that a hearse?” she asked me uneasily.

I looked out and confirmed it for her. You just can’t mistake a hearse for anything. A man in a black suit got out and walked into the house across the street. It’s an apartment building with four floors, and we don’t know many of the tenants who live there. We have lived on this street for fifteen years, but we hardly know any of the neighbors from our own house.

Although we had no idea who the mortician was going to, we both had a lump in our throats. In our street live many young families with children and very few older people. Should death have taken someone before his time? This thought was oppressive.

“Maybe a relative died in the hospital, and the mortician is now visiting the family to advise them,” my wife speculated.

I wanted to believe that, but one thing argued against it: The mortician had left the front door open. Usually, these doors fall shut again on their own unless someone blocks the door with a wedge. People here actually only do that when they want to transport heavy furniture into the house or outside.

So I was sure this was about something other than a consultation appointment. We also didn’t know how long the car had been standing outside before my wife discovered it. Someone might have entered the house before the man with the suit — someone with a stretcher, for example.

A few minutes later, my dark suspicions were confirmed, and two men came out of the house with a stretcher. Someone was lying on it.

I always had the idea that dead people were brought out of the house in a metal coffin. But the men were taking someone to the car in a black body bag.

My wife felt sick. I did not feel well either. The body bag was quite large. You could see that there had to be someone in it who was big and heavy. I would rather not have seen that.