The boy held court in the junior high bathroom and a group of us stood around him wide-eyed and rapt. We had come to hear the story of the kid who had found the body in the woods.

He had been out shooting his pellet gun with a friend one afternoon when they came upon the corpse. Only they didn’t know it was a dead man right away. No, these adolescent soldiers fired several times at the body as they moved closer.

It was a gripping story, perfect for the imaginations of junior high kids who delight in all things macabre. The boy at the center of the room explained how horrified they had become as they inched closer to the body. It was mesmerizing.

“It looked like a wax figure,” the boy said in a low voice, looking from one gaping face to another as he emphasized this point.

Time to flee

The kid did not hesitate to admit he had fled from the woods like a deer running from gunfire. We did not hold it against him. There is something about the remains of a human life that strikes us on a primitive level. The corpse served as a stark symbol of mortality, and that’s a little much for a 12-year-old kid to grasp.

People are fascinated by human remains and have been so since man developed an imagination. Nothing serves as such a dramatic foreboding of our own demise as the lifeless shell of what was once a person.

When the leftovers of human life are discovered, a giant machine takes over. Police are called. Medical examiners drive to the scene in dark cars. Onlookers stand around with crime tape, and the press awaits the story behind the body.

In Auburn a few years ago, what appeared to be human remains were found in a dumpster. The machine went into action. The press caught wind of it and circled like vultures. Police called for state experts, and a crime scene van rolled toward the Twin Cities.

As I was leaving the city, I saw the mobile crime lab and I turned right around. I’m as curious as anyone about bodies that show up in unlikely places. More curious, perhaps.

Those remains belonged to a bear. Cops, medics and reporters alike shared stifled laughs, and a joke or two was passed. We were disgusted with ourselves for having been fooled, but also relieved. As mysterious as the faces of death can be, looking too closely can be uncomfortable.

Going downriver

In Lewiston not many years ago, what appeared to be a body was found floating on the Androscoggin River. The corpse was a horror, having been stripped and scrubbed by the currents. Police detectives, who confront death almost daily, dutifully paddled out to the body in a small boat.

That one turned out to be the puffy corpse of a beaver. More titters. More jokes. By the time the detectives got to their offices the following day, the walls and desks had been littered with photos and drawings of beavers.

Years back, a friend of mine came upon a body in a patch of woods. This was more than a decade past, but the image of the dead man is still with her.

“I can see it clearly,” she said. “I will never forget it.”

More profound is the psychological impact of the discovery. This woman and her husband were alone with the body for several minutes. When the death machine took over, there was almost a sense of a severed relationship.

“What struck me about the situation, as strange as it sounds, is that for a period of time before the police came and the area was roped off, we felt like we owned it.”

Yes, the psychological or spiritual connection between you and a fate we all face. It’s fascinating, depressing and frightening all at once.

A woman called me several weeks ago and reported she had been finding bones around Lake Auburn. Some of those bones were accompanied by tattered bits of clothing. With a morbid sense of recognition, the lady believed she had stumbled upon a heap of human remains.

Earlier this week, more bones were found around the lake. Police were dispatched. This time, it was a nearly intact skeleton found in a trash bag. The ears of reporters twitched. Local people stood by breathlessly, ready to be horrified. Something terrible might be afoot.

Those bones belonged to a deer. The only heinous crime that had been committed was the murder of an animal out of season. The newsroom groaned and life went on. Until the next time a spent life is found in the woods, in the water or in some far-flung place where bodies don’t belong.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter. You can visit his blog at www.sunjournal.com.