Grave Desserts

PT. 2

‘Death’s Lil’ Treasures’

There is a camaraderie with trees during a storm that it quite moving. The branches lean on each other loyally as they are thrashed within every inch of their lives by the hateful heavens. They are put through the wringer, and there is no tree to protect them like we humans have. If they make it through as a team some, or all of the battered branches spring back in a collective middle finger to the sky as if to say, “Better luck next time, you shit.”

Chelsea was admiring their tenacity, and group effort of continual comeback each time the rain and wind kicked up another hideously fitful challenge for the steadfast oak tree that stood to the right of her. She was hiding beneath the eve of St. Peter’s Church, and preparing to go back to work at the mortuary after hitting the Chinese buffet. The night was young, and she would soon be back at it among the stiffs. They’re glossy fish eyes would continue to stare up at her as she filled their veins to the brim with formaldehyde. She would prep each one as specified by their loved ones for each individual service the next day, but all endless funerals were so similar that they all ran into each other and became one collective death march.

Chelsea enjoyed the work for many reasons, least of which was the pay. She would have done it for free if it didn’t raise eyebrows. It wasn’t like she needed the money. She had received a large inheritance from her great aunt Judy when she passed five years ago that had kept her quite comfortable. Chelsea never was much of an over-spender anyway. Most of her days she spent out of sight, and unnoticed. She passed like a ghost down her street, rarely going out except for that week’s groceries. She felt much like what she imagined a ghost felt like. She dressed in earth tones with no urge to sexualize herself in the least. She would have worn a potato sack if it didn’t draw any attention. Chelsea absolutely hated when people accidentally noticed her. She kept her beautiful red hair in a bun. She did everything not to be noticed, and blend into the background like a forgotten rose. She never felt comfortable with social interaction, and when it happened on accident it always made her feel extremely uncomfortable. She aspired to be an old flower on fraying wallpaper in a house that had plans to be condemned. Most of the time she got her wish, but today, as she ran through the pelting drops from the swiftly darkening sky, an old beggar man jumped up from the stoop he was slumped on, and reached out at her. He was trying to say something through his wrinkled mouth as he fondled her jacket. A rough looking hand that had seen better days lunged out, and caressed her breast. There was dirt and oil caked onto the skin. Chelsea saw his wet gums with holes and no teeth up close. His tongue was black as a dead slug. His eyes were frenzied, and cobwebbed in yearly amounts of sleep. Each eyelash clung to a more disturbing clump of petrified snot, displaying a bouquet of varied eye boogers that was green and yellowed and past their prime for the plucking. Chelsea recoiled from the disgusting smell and look of the man. She hated that he was alive, and groping her, but she had up ’til now be petrified. She yanked her rain coat from his hands, and sent him spinning into the open street like a top. When he stopped rolling, he pulled himself up on his hands, and knees, spitting up whatever teeth he had left. He was about to get up, but just as he lifted his bluish dead eyes to traffic, a bus plowed into him. He had no chance to protest, his bones were ground to dust in mere seconds. By the time a lady customer had come out of Loraine’s Pizza Palace and screamed, Chelsea was almost to Good Bodies Mortuaries back entrance. Chelsea slipped in, and hit the snack machine first. She had really drummed up a serious appetite for an Oatmeal Cookie Sandwich.

*

Chelsea was staring into Mr. Mckenzie’s lifeless eyes. She always took a good long stare at the eyes before applying the flesh-colored “eye-caps” that gave the illusion that the dead person’s eyes were closed. She took out her needle and thread and began the slow process of sewing Mr. Mckenzie’s jaw closed so his mouth didn’t pop open. Her red hair was falling out of it’s bun, and into her face, and her forehead was starting to sweat a bit. The string had to be perfectly threaded through the lower jaw below the gums, up and through the gums of the top front teeth, into the right or left nostril, through the septum, into the other nostril, and back down into the mouth correctly or she had to start again. Chelsea didn’t mind taking all night but there were other bodies to pay attention to, and she had other things in mind that she wanted to do with her time. Once she was done with all the sewing, she slid the trocar below his belly button, and passed it through the flesh until she felt she had hit pay dirt. She drained the gas, and fluids from Mr. Mckenzie, and then swiftly replaced them with the formaldehyde mixture. After this habitual procedure that she did countless times in one day, her eyes drifted back to Mr. Mckenzie’s mouth. It was looking a lot droopier then before. Chelsea manipulated the lips in a way that looked more natural, and then, forgetting any urges within herself to stop, she became smitten with the way the dead man’s lips now looked after manuevering. They looked so plump and inviting. Chelsea couldn’t help herself! She kissed him full on the mouth, and mounted his corpse in pure unbridled delight! Her hand glided behind her, down to where his cold member waited in a rigomortis state. She gathered it in her small hands, and began to stroke it up and down vigorously. A brightness in the back of her eyes switched on as she rocked back and forth on the body. She was getting extremely aroused now, as she slid up and down Mr Mckenzie’s pale white chest, coating him with her juices. Suddenly, with a loud buzzing sound, a light turned on at the top of the stairs! Chelsea hopped off Mr. Mckenzie, and pulled her skirt back down. She could tell by the thud of his heavy shoes that it was Owen Miller, the elderly funeral parlor’s owner who was coming down to pay her a visit. Mr. Miller was the same man who hired her, and Chelsea suspected he knew more about her then he let on. Chelsea sprayed a bit of Febreeze in the air quickly, fixed her bun, and tried to arrange some semblance of normalcy to her flushed rosy cheeks, as the blissful expression that was frozen to her face was very hard to shake.

“Hey, Chelsea, you look like you’re working up a sweat from all the work down here,”

Mr. Miller winked knowingly as he appeared out of the shadows after descending the staircase.

Chelsea smiled a half smile, and laughed nervously. She blew a bit of stray hair from her face, and then realized that she wasn’t wearing her glasses. She quickly grabbed the pair off the chest of Mr. Mckenzie, and placed them on her nose.

“Hey, you wanna see this pack of 50’s pin-up girl playing cards that I bought off Ebay last Friday? There’s a nudie pic of Betty Page in there. You told me once that you liked her, didn’t you?”

“Yea, she’s great! That’s cool that you found some old pin-up cards! Can we play a game sometime soon?”

Surprised at her invitiation, Mr. Miller agreed, and they walked together into the back offices to take a look at his recent Ebay score.

(To be continued...)

Model and Inspiration for story: Stephanie Cary

Photographer: Seth Brandenburg