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Dead men tell no tales, that's what they say, isn’t it? How wrong they are.
Dead men can tell plenty, both about the man and about their circumstances.
Take a look at this here John Doe, what does he say with his broken windpipe?
That his end was not a pleasant one. Blood under the fingernails, bruising around the knuckles, alcohol in his system,
Empty bottle shattered in his hand, his body a block away from the bar, well within angry drunken stumbling distance,
All pointing to his end being an end to bar fight that went wrong.
His wallet, gone, a depression on the fingers, missing rings, all signs someone got a bonus off of Doe's dough.
Still, John's tale might not be enough proof that dead men can tell some good old fashioned fairy tales.
After all, what good is just one sample?
Well, then let's look at young little Jimmy Nash, 18 years old with blood covering his wrists,
Long cuts running crisscross against his skin, the ones parallel to the veins being older,
Actual scars instead of opened or clotted cuts running down alongside the veins in his arm.
Together these lines tell us a tale of sadness, of depression, of despair,
Of a reach for attention that was responded to only by the reach of death.
The old, black and blue bruises that cover the clothing covered parts of his body tell
A tale far more telling of what caused this outreach.
His eyes seem even emptier than John's did,
For John went down fighting, while Jimmy leapt down happily.
Is that enough evidence of what stories bodies tell?
Well then, how about the tale of old James Henderson?
He’s an older corpse, though he was only in his 40s when he passed.
Waterlogged clothing, waterlogged flesh, water-filled lungs all show that he drowned.
The rope burns around the ankle, on the right foot, and the various bruises,
Likely from a crowbar and brass knuckles in equal measure,
Show he got his new sleeping arrangements and neighbors thanks to a mob hit,
When he crossed the wrong man, or lost the wrong war.
Does his narrative prove my point, or do you still need more?
Need I tell you more stories of even more bodies?
Need I tell you what sperm means on a cadaver?
What that bag of white powder can tell you about the corpse it was found upon,?
What the angle of the knife wound says about the intent behind the stab?
How the temperature gives a time of death?
That the warmer the cadaver the closer the finder was to saving a life?
No, I can tell that you get the picture.
You can see that dead men tell tales after all,
Indeed some would say that they tell too many,
Too many stories for the sanity and the cheer and the happiness
Of any Pathologist who would stop to listen and disprove the old adage.
After all, everybody has a story, and so too does every body,
But no one ever said that these stories had happy endings.