Body On The Porch

Earlier today I happened to look outside our spare bedroom window which faces directly onto our next door neighbors’ back door and porch area. I was surprised to see an older woman whom I did not recognize as my neighbor and had never even seen around our street. She was sitting peacefully with a small plastic tupperware box on her lap containing what looked like sweets/candy.

Her body was slightly slumped, head tilted back with a small bathroom towel wrapped around her hair. I thought she must be asleep.

So I went about my day and later returned to the window again. I noticed the woman had not moved at all. As I looked more closely at her face, I thought  her skin looked abnormally white  in color. At this point I thought she was dead but was not one hundred percent certain. There was no movement of her chest or stomach, or any sign of breathing from what I could see.

My first thought was that maybe I should go to my neighbors’ door and let them know. I wondered how long she had been there; my guess would be a matter of hours. I waited a short time, and just as I was about to leave the back door opened and a cat sat beside the open door looking around. Then my next door neighbor stepped out onto the porch and walked straight past the body, almost as if she did not even see anyone sitting on the chair. My neighbor went straight down the stairs carrying a laundry basket in  her hands. She was down the stairs and out of sight for a least ten minutes.

Then the neighbor came back up the stairs mopping each step from the bottom to the very top. At this point I thought that surely my neighbor would notice that this woman was dead; to me it was so obvious, but she still never noticed. My neighbor even cleaned around the chair where the body was and never batted an eyelid. I was really starting to wonder what was going on, so I took a photo of the woman.

Body on the porch

I mentioned to my husband that I was going to go around to our neighbors’ door to see if they realized there possibly might be a deceased person or family member on their porch. Of course, I understood that this was a very sensitive issue so I would not be so blunt but maybe just mention that I was concerned about the woman on their porch. I decided to suggest that they just check to see if she was okay.

I started to think, “What if  the woman on the chair was murdered? Maybe they sat her outside on the porch because of the smell, or maybe she had been hit on the head and the bathroom towel’s purpose was to cover the obvious wound!” Then I thought surely not..

So my husband stayed at the window while I went next door to speak to my neighbor. He was waiting to see if anything would happen to the body while I am round at the neighbors house. So off I went with my Cell phone in my pocket.

I rang the doorbell of my neighbors’ house and waited patiently behind the gate. Through the glass door, I could see my neighbor approaching with a huge friendly looking smile. She opened the door and asked if I would like to come in; I felt a bit apprehensive but went in. I explained that I was concerned about the  lady on the porch. I barely finished my sentence when she burst out laughing; my neighbor’s husband looked at me over the top of his glasses and smiled. She took me out onto the porch and her husband followed.

They went straight to the body, picked her up and started flopping her around. It turned out she was a dummy!

My neighbor told me their house had recently been burgled, and someone gave them a dummy to use to give the impression people are in the house. She went on to say the dummy was left outside on the chair so she could give it a good clean before they use it.

I told her that when you see it from the window it looks real; all dressed in tracksuit bottoms, sweatshirt and a pair of running shoes. My neighbors certainly saw the funny side. I don’t know who was the biggest dummy here but I sure felt like one.

The burglars had climbed over the  garden wall of our house and jumped down onto the top of our tiled shed. I guess our next door neighbors’ house was more of a target for a burglar because they had a window at the back where we don’t. They stole his laptop and various other items.

All this happened while my husband and I were away for a few days on a work related trip, so we missed everything. Maybe we might have heard something had we been around but we are glad to know our neighbors are all right.

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