The Cool Room by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 17

As usual, the next day began as all weekdays do – early. Frank was generally in around five in the morning. As owner and resident, he insisted on being first in, as there was usually paperwork to go through before checking on the cool room. Unlocking its steel door, he made sure the drawers were closed and locked. He didn’t think anyone would be foolish to break into a funeral home, but he made it part of his routine. He didn’t give it much thought, but while checking the refrigerator doors, wondered what he would do should he discover a break-in. Knowing there were some strange people in the world, he realized that some were drawn to the idea of death – hopefully not enough to be tempted to force their way into a funeral home.

Thirty minutes later, as Frank sat at his desk, he heard the crumbling of loose gravel as Jonathan pulled up in front of the funeral home. During a service, it was a general rule that he park in the back, but with nothing scheduled until the afternoon, he was comfortable parking in the front. Later he would move his car to the backyard. The impracticality of this idea did occur to him and after a stern remark from Frank he went back out and starting the engine moved his car to the back. It would be this way from that point on.

Emily arrived shortly after and out of common sense slowly drove her car down the side of the house and into the backyard. She assumed that there would be a service every day and people would need a place to park. It wasn’t exactly a luxury vehicle, but it got her from Albany to the small town she now lived and worked in. Devoid of the problems that plagued older cars Emily never considered buying anything new believing that what she had was enough.

Once inside, she made her way to the cool room where Jonathan was already working on a new client. Frank had been called out over the weekend to pick up a client from a nursing home that lay on the outskirts of town. The countryside there was beautiful, with green grass that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. With few houses, what lined the road was mostly mobile homes with chicken coops either behind or beside them. Yet, the landscape was sparsely populated and perfect for the single-story nursing home that resembled more a college campus than a long term nursing facility. However, with such an abundance of natural beauty, one might think it would instill some degree of peace among its residence. But this didn’t seem to be the case, as two to three patients were found every week having died in their sleep or sitting in a wheelchair. In a nursing home, death seemed to be standing in nearly corner waiting for that last breath to be exhaled as skin turned a pale yellow and mouth drawn into an open smile. Only then would the specter of death be pleased and escort the newly deceased across the earthly boundary into an unearthly world. It was only yesterday that death took another for its post-mortem relocation, leaving behind the shell that now lay on a stainless steel tray in Frank’s cool room waiting for preparation. Rolling the client out of the refrigerator, Emily and Jonathan would soon get to work doing what they both had a passion for. And what they did, they would give to the family and friends of the deceased as the client’s parting gift – a final farewell as they drifted away to wherever they believed lay after that final heartbeat.