1. Kiernan
KIERNAN
Every day for the past four and a half years, I’ve woken up to the looming presence of death. Longer, even, considering I grew up with Samael Messor as an uncle. He’d lived and breathed for the lifeless and breathless, his taste for the macabre something he’d always hoped to pass onto me despite my complete and utter aversion to his line of work.
The flight back to Fate Trace had been quick and easy, but since the moment I’d stepped off the plane and onto the jet bridge, an overwhelming sense of dread and uncertainty had settled over me. Each step towards my potential new home felt heavier, and now that I was in the throes of what I’d come to do, I wasn’t sure leaving again would be an option.
It had been a full year since I last visited.
A full year since Iris.
Now, I had torn myself away from my comfortable life, said goodbye to co-workers and friends, and relocated across the country for this. It felt like the right thing to do—taking over the family business—despite the doubt that had crept in during the process. My old boss had reassured me that if things didn’t work out, I could always return to my previous job. His words echoed in my mind as I looked around me.
I was used to working in a stale environment. My day-to-day was predictable. Monotonous. The clinical feel of working in a commercial funeral parlor was so very different from the home my uncle had made for himself here at Messor Memorial.
There was too much of him here; too much that felt like home to me because he’d once touched it.
Uncle Sammy had smoked like a freight train for as long as I could remember. It was so very like him not to take his doctors seriously. He’d become insensible in his old age and despite having kept in regular contact with him, it wasn’t until he was all but moribund that I’d fully grasped just how uncontrolled his blood pressure had been.
Less than a month after his debilitating stroke, I’d gotten the news that he died. And now he was here, his muscle mass wasted away to nearly nothing, lying on the mortuary table I’d recently inherited from him. It was hard to believe this was the uncle who used to carry me around on his broad shoulders when I was a child. I would miss him.
I already did.
The familiar strains of Eine kleine Nachtmusik filled the room, their animated and cheerful quality standing in stark contrast with what I was about to do.
I carefully measured and poured the vibrant dye concentrate into the embalming fluid tank, watching as the liquid turned a deep shade of crimson, taking the first steps to ensure that Sammy looked as restored to his usual rosy-cheeked state as possible, given the circumstances. The sterile scent of formaldehyde lingered in the air, tangling with the bright notes of the music.
It was a poignant and emotional moment for families to see their loved ones looking somewhat normal for their final goodbyes. I was Sammy’s last remaining blood family member, my father— his only brother—having passed away in a car accident when I was very young. But, I knew he had also formed a strong bond with his found family outside of our blood ties. As I looked at his pale face and frail frame, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of sadness knowing that his chosen family would also hate seeing him like this, just as much as I did.
Images of my own lifeless body, laid out on a cold, sterile mortuary table, flashed through my mind. I was used to it—the intrusive thoughts. My own death had played out in my mind a million different ways over my lifetime.
With gentle pressure, I worked my fingers along his stiffened muscles, the tattoos on my forearms rippling with each movement. I felt the resistance give way as rigor mortis released its hold on his arms and hands and I thought of all the life they’d seen—and all the death; the number of times he’d done this exact thing to so many others.
I positioned my surgical tools on the metal tray next to me. Using a scalpel, I made an exact one-inch incision at his collarbone, exposing the carotid artery and jugular vein. Carefully, I inserted the drain tube first, then the arterial tube, and clamped it off. With a flick of the switch on the pump, embalming fluid began to flow through his arteries, replacing his blood. For the next hour, I continued massaging his tissue and watched as his pale skin regained its color, his blood moving through his veins and flowing out the tube and down the drain at the end of the table.
I knew cavity embalming would be my least favorite step in this process, as it generally was. Sucking organ fluids liposuction style through an incision in someone’s abdomen was not necessarily my idea of a good time on an average day at work, but especially not when it was my uncle’s cold, dead face staring back at me. Not that his eyes were open. I hadn’t set his features yet, but I’d taken the time to close his eyes and suture his mouth closed in the beginning for my own comfort during the process.
With gloved hands, I made an incision just below his navel and inserted my trocar. The sucking sound of bodily fluids was blessedly drowned out by the jarring notes of Mozart still blasting in the background.
A similar hollowness settled in the pit of my stomach as I worked, struggling to close off my emotions the way I normally did while doing something like this. I usually had no trouble dissociating, but performing such an intimate and invasive procedure made it impossible to ignore the fact that this was my uncle lying in front of me and this wasn’t just another day at work.
I’d have gladly tasked literally anyone else with this responsibility, but something in my gut told me that Sammy would have wanted it to be me. He’d always had a twisted sense of how things should be done and reveled in his work in a way that I would never be able to. He lacked the desire to preserve a sense of dignity in the embalming room; something that came naturally to me.
He’d been ecstatic to learn that I’d chosen to follow in his footsteps by deciding to work in death care, but I’d never told him or anyone else that my decision to study mortuary science had nothing to do with him and was nothing short of self-prescribed exposure therapy.
I think most people fear death or dying, but after the loss of my dad, thoughts of what came after a person’s life ended were so prevalent in my mind that it affected my ability to ever truly live.
I obsessively avoided anything I perceived to be dangerous and actively separated myself from anything wrong or bad. Dead to every sin.
Until the day I made a conscious decision to confront death head-on instead of avoiding it.
During the beginning of my studies I often thought about the complete juxtaposition of it all: the dead had a peace I’d never known and even though I struggled with my phobia every second of every day, I also began to envy the answers they’d found in no longer having to wonder what lay on the other side.
I found beauty in the contentedness of the deceased, calm in their perpetual silence.
My work had become a source of solitude for me. I had chosen to embrace death instead of fearing it, finding solace in providing closure for families and honor for the departed.
That didn’t always stop the intrusive death-related thoughts from forcing their way into the forefront of my mind, but I had become pretty good at ignoring them for the most part.
And over the last year, there had been other, very different thoughts at the forefront of my mind. Thoughts that crept in no matter how hard I tried to push them away.
Thoughts of Iris.
She was a hyper fixation. I had no other explanation for it.
And she was long gone.
I’d asked around upon returning to town and had been told by multiple people here that the only Iris they knew had moved away around a year ago. Around the last and only time I’d seen her. I’d known the random encounter between us was likely just a blip in our lives, but that didn’t stop the pang of sadness I felt, or the ridiculous longing.
It was stupid of me, really.
Moving on from the cavity embalming, I did some minor restorative work, preserving and rejuvenating Sammy’s features with small amounts of tissue builder injected into his face and ears.
All that was left was to dress and casket him. I would honor his wishes for what he wanted to be done with his remains after death—cremation that would take place at the crematorium he’d had on the outskirts of town—but I also wanted to give him a proper send-off first.
I was used to having a mortuary assistant deal with the most menial—if you could even call them that—parts of this job, but I’d chosen not to have Sammy’s assistant help this time for multiple reasons.
This was something I needed to be alone for. I didn’t know if I could have handled a stranger’s eyes on me as I worked. I also knew that she’d worked closely with him for almost a year now, and even though she’d said in our emails to one another that she’d be fine to help, I didn’t want to subject her to all the things involved with preparing a body for viewing when that body had belonged to her mentor.
We had a meeting scheduled for the morning to discuss her future at Messor’s. I hoped she would choose to continue working under me now that Sammy was gone. The thought of having to do interviews made my head throb. How could I possibly find someone else to fill the position when I hadn’t even had a chance to settle into my new role? I let out a heavy sigh and pushed my glasses up my nose, rubbing at my temple.
The weight of grief and responsibility pressed heavily on my shoulders. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost midnight. Tomorrow I would need to not only handle my own bereavement but also maintain the business side of things, as well as direct my uncle’s funeral. I knew it would be even harder due to my lack of sleep, but I was restless and unsettled.
I finished up and cut the music off. Feeling exhausted and in need of a drink, I climbed the stairs and returned to the main part of the house.
Cardboard boxes, some taped shut and others open with various items spilling out, cluttered every corner of the main living area, evidence that I hadn’t unpacked much of anything.
I stood in the kitchen, twisting open a bottle of rum and reaching for the small can of coke on the counter. Once I mixed a generous pour of dark rum into my glass, ensuring the alcohol would overpower the fizz of the soda, I took it into the living room.
A framed print of Van Gogh’s Irises peaked out of the top of a box near the fireplace. Carefully, I lifted the oversized painting and pulled it out of the bubble wrap, setting it on the mantle. Taking a long drink, I admired the vibrant purple of the flowers and intricate details, thinking of the meaning behind it.
Life without tragedy.
I snorted.
Van Gogh and I were both well aware that’s something that doesn’t fucking exist.