**Did You Ever Find Someone Who Died?**

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Yeah, I know, not a pleasant subject to talk about and I really don't know why I thought about this today, but I did. His name was Bill. He was a very nice man, probably in his early 60s, minded his own business, but very pleasant to talk to once in a while. He lived next door to me in my apartment complex where I lived years ago. We didn't know each other well, just chatted every so often but I really thought he was a sweetheart. It all started one late summer evening with high 90 degree temperatures, when I heard a smoke alarm go off. I didn't think too much about it, as sometimes they would go off if you burnt some food on the stove. It didn't go consistently, but seemed to go off about every 15/20 minutes or so. I went out into the hallway and didn't smell any smoke or see any smoke, so I went back inside. It just seemed more annoying than anything. I went outside and sat down on my patio for a short while, played with my flowers, but could still hear it ringing on and off from a distance. I started thinking that maybe there was something wrong with it and it was broken. Eventually, I started thinking maybe Bill wasn't home, so I called Maintenance and explained the problem. I told them it was going on and off for approximately an hour or so but there was no smoke and no smell, so it wasn't an emergency in case they had much more important things to fix. They said they would be there shortly to check it out. So happens that one of the Managers came over that I knew. I explained to him again what was going on and that I thought maybe Bill was gone for the day. So I went next door with him and he knocked on the door and yelled Bill, this is Maintenance. No answer. He pounded harder this time and yelled Maintenance again. Still nothing. So he put his key in the door and opened it. There was Bill, sitting upright slumped over in a chair and the Manager called his name one more time as he was opening the door. I can't tell you how bad the smell was....remember, it was in the high 90s. We both were shocked and the goosebumps covered us as we just closed the door. The Manager called the police, and they came within minutes and then the coroner came. I felt really bad for them because they had to go in to take care of things. The smell in the hallway now was so repulsive I had to put towels down inside my door so it wouldn't seep in. The police came and talked with me a while later because I was the one who reported it to begin with. They believe the smell actually turned on the smoke alarm along with the humidity inside the apartment. I ended up calling my daughter at work and told her not to come home through the back door, but come through the patio door so she didn't go through that. It was a very sad day indeed. Poor Bill died of a heart attack in the chair. The funny thing is, a couple of days later, the smoke alarm in the utility room went off a couple of times which is right next to my apartment. I just said "Hi Bill." I think he came back to visit just one more time.