A Sibling in Always

Part 1 Chapter 6

6

so much

how much

this much

enough

never

enough

to eat

I swear

I will

explode

but I

am so

hungry

I have no idea how much weight my embalming table is rated for, but I suspect I am going to have a better idea soon. Most are rated for six to seven hundred pounds, and my new guest is at least that. This table was supposed to be the heavy duty model, so I hope it is rated for more. I can see it in my mind. Louisville has one of the largest communities of Victorian houses in the country. They are in a part of town referred to as Old Louisville. Most of them are cut up into apartments these days, and that is where this person left this world. A fire smoldered through the bones of the old mansion, smoke slowly seeping up to where my next customer slept. He must have heard the smoke detectors. There were no sprinklers. I saw it on the news before he made his way to my chamber. They say a neighbor broke the door down and tried to help, but it was just too impossible a chore. According to the news, a window was removed and a crane was brought in to remove the corpse. The coroner's assistants, who brought him to me, said they had to rent a special van. They had nearly a dozen extra men, mostly officers from the Always Police Department. The Louisville guys don't cross the river. I don't know if the Always officers were required to do it, or if they were just here for the novelty of it.

The table is creaking and crooning a strange song to me. Much of the heavy lifting in a mortuary is done with cranes and pulleys. They won't work for this one. I have measured the body. We have a special vendor dealing in oversized coffins; the sales rep for the company is supposed to call me about this one. I don't think our cranes and pulleys are up to the job. I can smell him.

The fire never raged; it seethed. I've seen it before. The temperature rises. This one hadn't been out of bed in a few years. We've seen a bit of that in my time. The neighbor, they said, tried to help, but he just wasn't up to the task. He was able to make his way to the firefighters outside, making them aware of the situation. The firefighters rushed in, but by the time they found him, he was dead of smoke inhalation. Though there were several of them, they weren't able to move the body. They had to evacuate the building. They brought the crane in once the fire was out and they were able to cut out the window.

The smell is of cooked flesh -- I've read, speaking of the war, Salinger told his daughter, "You never quite get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose." I'll get this smell out of my nose though. Part of his leg is burned to the bone, rendered fat clinging to the charred leg bone the size of a baseball bat. They make those in Louisville too; baseball bats, that is. The body is covered in ash and soot. The burned up leg won't be a problem really. It's rare for someone to be buried wearing shoes. People don't go to the infinite in their nicest shoes, but wearing only socks on their feet. It's something most people don't even think about. When the families drop off the clothing for the deceased, they always bring shoes. We keep them for a while. Open casket funerals just expose the upper third of the body, and no one sees anything past the navel. Occasionally we get a phone call from someone saying they think they forgot to bring shoes when their loved one passed, and we fill them in on this little bit of trivia. We keep the shoes around, just in case people ask for them back. After a few months, we throw them away. Most people are buried without underwear, too. Few people know that either. Who wants to think of grandma resting in her grave without her favorite flats and with no panties?