Dead on the Internet

The stars above were still faintly visible as white clouds rolled across the early morning sky.  The tall gray skyscrapers stood proudly alongside the city’s old redbrick buildings.  And as the dark sky lightened from black to blue and the streets filled with morning light, crime time slowed to a crawl, the night people took their rest, and the rats returned to their nests. 

At daybreak another bold Boston skyline is created.  On this day the early morning November sun was hiding behind the buildings as a lone student rowed her thin wooden shell across the dark river water.  A gray haired man wearing a long brown barn coat walked his dog along the Cambridge side of the Charles River near MIT. 

As the man and his dog walked along the riverbank the powerful black and brown German Shepherd saw something up ahead and took off, tearing open the fingers of his master’s fist breaking the hold his owner had on the end of the dog’s leash. 

“Hold on, Sam!” the bespectacled owner shouted and then he muttered, “Goddamn fleabag,” quietly, as if the dog would be offended if he heard his beloved owner disrespect him.

            The retired gentleman began to pick up his pace, chasing his dog, walking faster and faster, breaking into a jog and then finally a run.  The dog growled up ahead then flattened out on a dead run with the leash waving out behind him.  The retired gentleman chased his dog along the muddy riverbank dodging beer bottles, Styrofoam cups, and the assorted flotsam and jetsam that washed ashore from upriver.  The man was tiring fast and contemplated giving up the chase when Sam pulled up abruptly and growled at something in the brush along the Charles.  The hair along the dog’s shoulders and back stood on end.

The sudden stop caused the dog owner to stumble and fall forward, rolling down the riverbank. 

“Goddamn it, Sam Shepherd!” the man shouted as he rolled.  Just before tumbling into the dirty water of the Charles, the man stuck out his right arm and his right hand submerged in the riverbank muck.  It stopped his rolling just short of the water.

            The dog owner lay there in the thickets and weeds quietly, his eyes closed for a moment as he ran an internal check to feel for any bumps or bruises.  He silently cursed his dog who was still growling on the riverbank.

            The man opened his eyes to realize that he was face-to-face with a partially decomposing corpse.  As it lay on the riverbank, the ghastly and surrealistic looking body resembled a department store mannequin.  The skin was wrinkled and the flesh looked yellow and rubbery.  The dead man’s hair looked matted and artificial.  The one cloudy eyeball remaining in the corpse’s head was open and staring.  On the other side of the dead man’s face was an empty eye socket. 

The small wake from a passing rowboat splashed against the riverbank just enough to rock the bloated body.  As the corpse rolled slightly it groaned, expelling some of the nauseating and repulsive gases built up inside it.