The Cool Room by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 38

Having no knowledge of the life that had, hours ago, drifted from the body, they now wheeled through the funeral home. Jonathan and Emily rolled the body to the cool room. From there, they unzipped the red body bag, removed the shrouded vessel, peeled off the layer of nylon the nurses had wrapped it in, and placed the remains in the cooler. It would stay in storage as an empty shell until Jonathan and Emily were prepared to work their craft and bring life-like stillness to an otherwise decaying husk. Within a few hours, the magic of experience and training transformed the stiff, lifeless vehicle into a work of mortuary art – eyes closed, mouth shut, and orifices packed against leakage. The risk of purging had been reduced to one rare event. It was occasionally seen that a single tear could sometimes be pushed out and down the side of the face. If it happened to occur during the service, those in attendance could easily mistake it for crying, and an emotional chaos might erupt. People often believe what they want to believe, allowing their rational minds to abandon them for the impossible. But it was not likely that even this would occur, as Jonathan made generous use of the trocar in creating a tract for the escaping of gases. All that remained was the service, and after careful planning, it too was a thing of beauty, with the deceased lying in a dark mahogany casket surrounded by all species of flowers and adornments. But it was what happened during the client’s preparation that seemed odd. Frank decided to step out.

As Emily prepared the embalming pump, Frank walked in. He seemed tense, almost trembling, and dressed not in his usual business suit but street clothes.

“Hey,” he began. “How are things going? You got a handle on this?”

There was nothing complicated to it. In fact, it was quite straight-forward embalming. The widow would soon bring in the suit she wished him to be viewed and soon after buried in. But she was not expected until later that afternoon. “Um, yeah,” Jonathan replied. “We got this.” Frank nodded his head and informed them he was going out for a walk to get some air. Jonathan and Emily felt this was perfectly understandable and agreed they should occasionally encourage it. Although Frank was sometimes seen as being too independent for his own good, they still believed it was possible to find a way of offering some support without overextending their efforts. He was already teetering on the edge of emotional detonation. The one thing they did not want was to set him off by putting him in a place where he thought he was being patronized. It was important for them to recognize those times when he needed to be alone. They had no idea where he was going or what he was about to do.