scruta

[It’s the middle of the night. It’s Friday night, but Ferret is trying to get some sleep because he has to get up early the next day. Suddenly, a loud crash outside his window wakes him up. He figures that it was something someone had thrown from their window that hit a car (this happens often at his apartment complex). It’s none of his concern. He tries to go back to sleep.

Several minutes later, just as Ferret begins to doze off, he hears commotion outside and the sound of police on their walkie-talkies. He gets up and looks out of his back balcony to see the body of a man laying underneath a truck, covered in blood and convulsing as it gasps for air. Policemen circle the body, trying to figure out what to do. Ferret isn’t sure he can believe what he is seeing. He goes back inside, gets dressed, and then heads out into the street to get a better look.

When Ferret gets there, he sees the body of The Man folded up under the bottom of the truck. His right leg is pretzeled over the left. There is a pool of blood collecting underneath his head, flowing slowly down the pitched concrete. He sputters every once in a while, gasping for breath. On his way down, he had hit the corner of a truck, ripping off its right side-view mirror. Pieces of it lay scattered around the man’s body. Ferret looks over at the Security Guard who found The Man. He shoots him a look of helpless resignation, perturbed by the events that have taken place. After another minute of looking, Ferret turns around and walks away. As he walks, he sees Two Young Men stick their heads out of the fourth floor of an apartment tower. One of them speaks to the other:]

Young Man

什么发生了？

What’s happened?

Ferret

[overhearing and calling up to them]

一个人自杀了。他跳下来。

A person killed himself. He jumped.

Young Man

男的女的？

Man or woman?

Ferret

男的。

A man.

[Ferret turns to walk inside. He realizes that The Man isn’t quite dead, and that he told the bystanders that he was. But there’s no way he’d make it. There was too much blood. On the way back in Ferret notices a giant duvet crumpled up on the top of a car hood. Was the man trying to take in his hanging laundry and fell? Did he try to kill himself after all? Or had that fallen from somebody else’s laundry? There was no way to know.

Ferret is shook up. He goes inside and calls a friend to tell him what’s happened. He chats online with others. Fifteen minutes later, he hears screaming and wailing outside. He glances out the window to see that The Next of Kin has arrived. The Policemen hold her back from the scene. Soon an ambulance arrives. The Man isn’t breathing anymore.]