Dec. 31, 2005, Schenectady, New York

By Farrah Nayka Ashline

The grip between the corroded bike pedal and my soaked-through Nike sneakers glistened over every forward motion I made that January afternoon in Schenectady, New York.

In the uninviting pink whisper of sunlight that was barely visible along the river’s edge, I had decided that the only action I could muster that day was the unwrapping of my mountain bike from the layers of plastic tarp I had used to shield the bike from winter’s wrath. The bike had been stored on the back porch, behind the various boxes of leftover Halloween and Christmas decorations and flower boxes that were bought on sale at Greens Nursery.

Slowly and emotionless, I unwrapped each layer of protection as if I was unveiling a new toy, or gift of joy, and wondered if the weather would deter my sudden desire to go for a ride. There, in the apparent gray-cloud of winter’s burrow, the red-gleam body of my Jeep Cherokee mountain bike beckoned me to give it some attention.

Why not? You need this. So what if it’s cold out?

It didn’t take long for the muscles in my thighs to resume position, bulging and pumping sweat as I rode along toward the bike path behind the General Electric plant. This particular bike path was known in warmer weather to be quite popular due to the proximity of the river’s beauty, but on this day there was no one to be seen except the occasional squirrel or crow.

I pedaled faster, then rose up in the bike’s seat to pedal through my ankles, and then back down again, like a conductor leading a symphony through a pattern of music notes on a page. My thoughts, completely separate from the bones and sweaters and rushing warmth below my neck, turned separately at every bend, as if they were left behind from the body that pushed the soul forward, even if they wanted to stay behind.

Perhaps it was the distraction of my mind that day that prevented the sudden surprise of stumbling upon the sight of a man, all bundled in flannel with a chord around his neck, hanging from an oak tree overlooking Mohawk River.

Sheer panic swept me. For moments, I stood there in disbelief that death was staring me right in the face. My eyes were drawn to the tilted head, the crinkled, blistered skin that gave semblance to a dying flower in a vase. In the quiet stillness of that January day, one could almost feel a whisper of calamity all around. I cried. I screamed out.

“Who are you! Why did you do this!? Why didn’t you call for help? Why! Why! Why! You didn’t have to do this to yourself!”

I called the police. In the slow wake of winter’s events, a team of police cars took the opportunity to mingle with other officers. The yellow tape went up around the circle of trees in the forest, and I was told to continue on my way, they could take it from there.

I heard the officers laugh, pinching each other’s arms. A round of back-slappings occurred as each officer greeted another, asking one another how their holidays were spent.

More and more police cars kept arriving, doors slamming shut, and the occasional sound of reverberating laughter echoed in the tree limbs as I slowly rode my bike away from the scene. The hanged man remained in the tree behind the officers, alone and unattended to, even as I pedaled away, listening to the jokes and knuckle crackings of the officers.

“But I don’t want to leave you.”

It was difficult to describe in detail the event of finding the mysterious hanged man to family and friends. Every time I would release a detail of my discovery to a new person, the image of his motionless face would appear before me. People would frown in amazement, asking me questions regarding his age, his appearance, or the tree. They wanted to know something about the tree he selected: was it high up, could one really tie a rope on a tree, was it overlooking the river? Some speculated that he was a drug addict who might have binged and took his own life, others thought he was homeless as there was a shelter not too far from that area.

I stumbled in my attempt to give justice to the man’s ending. What could I tell them really about who he was? What reason could I give about why he did what he did?

I want to know who you were. I want to know why I couldn’t have found you sooner. Why you couldn’t have waited for me to ride my bike past you. I would have muttered hello, tried to look you deeply in the eyes. I would have seen your sadness and talked you out of it. I would have spoken about the river’s low tide, the frozen cracks of winter’s hold on the river, the way Indians might have survived such a day as cold as that one. I would have simply said something, as this is what I would have wanted someone to do for me, if they had seen me sitting there, contemplating.

I looked for his name to be mentioned somewhere in the local newspaper or on the local news. I called the police station to inquire about the mysterious man’s name, whether his relatives had been contacted, or any clue behind the face in my nightmares. The operator at the station always told me the same thing: “I’m sorry, Ma’am, but we are not allowed to release any information regarding the case until the members of his family are reached.”

I waited for many weeks. Eventually, when weeks turned into a month, and many months after, I came to realize that there may never be an answer to who the mysterious victim really was, or whether anyone actually cared. There are brief moments in life when our fates may cross, and a soul may choose to take the place of another in the universe’s unfolding of events. They can sense, like the winter wind and the soothing sounds of a river’s approach, that a passerby is approaching and desiring to swim, eliminating all worries or concerns that engulf their daily living.

In that semi-split moment, the soul much stronger will take the place of the weaker, carrying the emotional carnage to the other side of paradise. That day, a nameless man with no gloves and no relatives decided to switch places with a fate surrendered, and danced an affectionate dance with a woman now re-born.

Farrah Nayka Ashline lives in Upstate New York and dedicates her life to helping broken hearts through her integrative holistic center, HeartacheHelper.com, as well as leading soul-based tours through her second company, AffordableIndia.com. She considers the task of uncovering the human spirit as fuel for her stories.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Monday, November 20th, 2006 | Email This Post

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