A Sibling in Always

Part 1 Chapter 5

5

These many years

A tired woman

No more to breathe

She makes no choice

I have a tendency to fantasize; especially on a day like today. Nothing much to this one: a push of fluid and some makeup -- the kind of no challenge which I hate and have little to say about. It's another old woman whose time has come. This is most of what I do and most of what ends up on my table, so I see her and I am about my work. My mind begins to wander. I think this is something we all do. Daydream. We sleep at night and we dream, but our minds feed us images while we are awake too. It's something I can distinctly remember doing from my early childhood. I can remember my mother sitting beside my bed, telling me stories – tales one might say – of my father and the man I would become someday: just like him. My mind would paint reflections of a man I had never met, but some day would grow to be. She: unfolding her mind like a beautiful, children's storybook written just for me.

"Then I will be whole again," she would say.

The fluid is pushed. I begin with the makeup

We know we have dreams. I am willing to surmise the greatest dreams of all are not produced while we sleep. They come into being in cubicles and assembly lines. I won't pretend what I do is exciting. It may be interesting to some, but it is not exciting by any means. Our brains fill our days with the hope of something more. What dreams may come are not in the undiscovered country, they are right here with us. I've looked at those who have shed their mortal coil, and I see no eyes dreaming. I see my own reflection in the cool metal on which they lie.

I can't even begin to catalog where my fantasies have taken me. Sex? Of course: who doesn't on occasion? – though never when I am at my work. But it has taken me to places of meaning and depth too. It has taken me around the world. It has taken me to bed at night. It has taken me into the past and into the future. It has shown me the face I have only seen in pictures. It has placed me in Seth's office, barking my orders at him.

Now it is taking me to my own town, to my own place, and to the stool on which I sit. I stop.

It has been going on for days now. I have heard the voices coming from Seth's office: murmurs and mumbles. I have ventured outside and wandered the parking lot the last few mornings. Mason was working, dousing the flowers with water and pulling out tiny weeds from the asphalt, touching up parking spot lines with bright, white paint. I have seen the coming and going these last few days in the morning. The sheriff and the coroner both stopped by each day. The curious Randall fellow rushed in, exiting the long black car I noticed previously from the rear door. A reporter from the Always newspaper came to the door and was harshly shooed away.

Seth had told me to stay out of sight, so I did. None of them ever saw me.

The strange little body was still here, not even finding its way into a coffin yet. We have our main parlor where the funerals take place. Just beside of that there is a room we use for storage. In the event of a large funeral we use it for overflow, placing folding chairs in neat rows. This is the place for acquaintances and distant relatives. Now it is the resting place for the person I embalmed, the one whose name I have never even heard and wonder if I will ever know. This creature lies crudely on a bier where a coffin should be resting, wrapped in a sheet and waiting for its final internment.

I have calmed in my resolve, but I have not let it go. Truth is I lost my nerve. Days ago, when Seth berated me for not following his instructions, I was determined. Now I have waned a bit. I am not sure how or why I would do it. Take the body, that is. Take it out into Always and let passers-by take a peek. It's stupid, I decided. Wouldn't everyone agree? I would agree. It's where my fantasy had taken me though: on-lookers seeing what I had done and being amazed by it. Even if it is my finest work, my work isn't meant to be seen, to be honest. My work is meant to be buried.