He pushed the trocar into her abdomen and began thrusting it in and out like a surgeon performing a liposuction. The embalming fluid began to flood her abdominal cavity, and as the trocar pierced her major internal organs, the gases from the early stages of decomposition were released.
Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry. He thought.
A tear ran slowly down his cheek. Then the violent sobbing began.
“Are you OK, Mr. Doyle?” His young apprentice had stepped into the room.
Am I OK? OK? What kind of stupid question is that?
“I’m fine Thomas. I’ll be fine. This is just a little harder than I thought. Please shut the door when you leave.”
The preparation room was cold and sterile like a hospital ER. Stainless steel preparation table and sink. Cold white tile on the floor and walls.
Even after twenty years as a Funeral Director, he still found the embalming process to be barbaric and disgusting. He thrust the hollow tube of the trocar a few more times into her stomach and turned the
machine off. The fluid he had been injecting into her carotid artery had circulated throughout her body.
Thank God the embalming was over.
He began washing and cleaning her naked body. He always found this part of the preparation process to be calming and relaxing. It gave him a higher sense of duty to the deceased. He remembered the first time he had seen her naked. So young and so beautiful. They were only teens. They had spent hour after hour exploring each other’s bodies. There had been lots of giggling, but he never forgot the smoothness of her skin or the roundness of her small breasts. God how he loved her then. How he loved her always. How he still loved her now.
With the embalming finished, it was time for him to apply the makeup. Seal the eyelids shut. Wire up her jaw from the inside so it wouldn’t drop open in the casket. As he stuck the long sewing-like needle into her gum and began working to shut her jaw for all eternity, he looked into her face. Another tear. Another violent episode of sobbing.
Thomas quickly entered the room again. “Mr. Doyle …”
“Get out! Just leave me Thomas. Don’t step into this room again tonight!”
He felt bad yelling at him. He was a good kid. A fantastic apprentice and probably the future owner of the business. He’d make sure to apologize to him later.
Her face. Her beautiful face. He’d kissed her lips so many times. Caressed her cheeks with his hands. Gazed into her eyes. So beautiful. He thought of their first kiss. To her it must have seemed like he was taking forever. It was obvious what he planned to do that night, but he was so nervous. He had squeezed her hands so tightly when he leaned in, that she had lost circulation for a second.
The actual kiss was ecstasy. Kissing a woman was like nothing he had ever experienced before and he couldn’t get enough of it that evening. That evening so long ago. The evening he knew she’d one day be his wife.
Usually he had a local hairdresser work on the hair of the deceased, but tonight it would be his duty. Her hair was so lovely. Strawberry blonde. Gently wavy and flowing down her back. He washed, dried, and brushed her hair by hand. He must have been brushing it for fifteen minutes before he drifted back to the present. So many memories of her. So many memories of them together.
He needed a smoke. He needed to stop thinking about her. He would finish up the makeup and casket her body when he was done smoking. He settled into the chair in the corner of the prep room and lit up. Sucking in the warm burning tobacco, he started getting angry. This was a stupid idea. Stupid stupid idea. But as the smoke cleared it was apparent that he wasn’t any farther away from her in his mind.
He’d never get away from her. The memory of her was burned into his head. The memory of the look in her eyes. The utter horror in her eyes and the muffled screams from under her duct taped lips as he had slowly inserted the embalming tube into her carotid artery and turned on the embalming machine. How many times had he said to her, “Don’t cheat on me. Don’t ever cheat on me.”
He broke down sobbing again. “Why did you have to cheat on me. Why? I told you to NEVER cheat on me!”
The tears wouldn’t stop. They wouldn’t stop for a long time.
_____________________________
©2011 Jonathan Lund
Jonathan is a Real Estate Agent and former Cemetery Plot Salesperson (able to get you into your first home AND your last home). He is a lifelong voracious reader and just beginning his journey as a writer.
Tags: Jonathan Lund
