A few notes from the tenants’ body

“A tenant lived with the corpse of his former lodger for 10 years”
“Alan Derrick discovered his lodger Dennis Pring dead on his sofa in 1998 and rather than report it decided to cover the body with cushions and two armchairs”
“The decomposing body was not found”
“There came a point, I would say at the end of April 1998 or June 1998, when Mr Pring laid down on the sofa and did not get up again”
“The bath tub was full of human excrement”
“A healthier dose of common sense might have stopped Mr Pring’s death lying undiscovered”

[“Tenant who feared eviction kept lodger’s body in house for 10 years” Guardian, Tuesday 20th April, Article by Steven Morris]


It seems we are all faced with the trouble of what to do with the body.

From digesting it, to freezing it (back into the maternal crypt with Elisa Marder), to covering it with pillows and hoping somewhat the body won’t be found, or that we won’t have to explain how it ended up there. The body always seems to end up problematic. It always needs to be negotiated. It’s not just a case of how to deal with death, of mourning, or absence, but also an act of creating that absence in the disposal of the flesh. And how to perhaps articulate the death, or explain it. Why you ended up with your dead babies in the freezer or why it seemed appropriate to lick the ashes of your husband?


In the end we are all still left with what to do with the body.