Resting in peace?

You ever think someone or something was dead?

I've had it happen before: gone in to check on the kids or maybe look at one of your pets, and you're trying to be really quiet and still and not disturb them. And they're laying there, not moving and not making a sound...and it crosses your mind: what if they're not sleeping - what if they're dead? And at first it's nothing more than a weird sick thought that flashed across your mind, but then you start to really wonder and your mind kind of pricks up its ears. Wait a minute, you think, they really AREN'T moving at all. And you really DON'T hear any sound. No breathing, not even a little nose-whistle. And you start staring really hard at their chest to see if you can make out any movement there, even just a little rise and fall. And pretty soon you've gone and really freaked yourself out, and you do the only logical thing: you poke them to see if they react. Oh, sometimes you cover it up by smoothing the hair back off their forehead or gently stroking their cheek or rubbing their shoulder, but you know what you're really doing: you're poking them to see if they move around and maybe mutter a bit or turn over or whatever. And then you can laugh at yourself for being stupid and go back to whatever it was you were doing and forget about it. Except that somewhere down deep, part of you knows you actually weren't being stupid, you were just being diligent.

That's how it was with the guy on the subway. He was there when I got on, slumped over against the window with his eyes closed and his mouth hanging open just a bit. My first thought was that he was a student crashed out after too much studying; he didn't show any signs of partying (like what, I don't know - maybe barf stains down the front of his coat) or anything like that so I didn't figure he'd passed out from booze (though the usual stink of the subway car certainly would have concealed any alcohol reek). The side-to-side motion of the car moving covered up any body movements so I couldn't see any signs of breathing. And as I sat there I started to really wonder: was he really sleeping, or was he dead?