The Poet and the Mortician

THE POET AND THE MORTICIAN

by Deborah Johnstone

(Content warning: death and hard problems)

The mortician is called in. The body of a celebrated poet lies before her. Jorgos. He only ever needed one name. He likely forgot his real name decades ago. He was deeply loved by so many, satisfied with the fanaticism his talent bestowed upon him. In death, the adoration escalates. It’s easy to see his departure as tragic. He died alone—on New Year’s Day, no less—still a young man at fifty. Of course, drug use is suspected. It is known that the poet regularly anesthetized himself against years of sorrow and desperation. Unrequited kindness plagued his heart—as it does for so many. Then, his heart stopped. That is all one need understand. 

The mortician draws the sheet down. His unblemished skin—cold and alabaster—reflects a hunger. She must remain composed. The funeral director and his assistant are watching closely to gauge her ability. It’ll reveal itself in her face. 

“Can you make him as he was in life?”

“Of course. Show me an image.”

A beautiful man, marked by sensitivity, fierce intellect, and the endless invasion of those who appropriated fragments of his fragile soul. 

“He’ll be ready for viewing tomorrow morning.” 

Confident, they leave her to the task.

Eva places her hand on his heart, and she weeps. Salty tears of grief for a man she never met in life, but whose poetic hinterland brought her great respite. If she could meet him—just once—she would tell him how he saved her life, how his words stirred her soul, saved her from an abyss. She would have said so much. And now… How to make this man the way he was? How to reflect the gravitas and joy and sorrow and yearning his fingers laid to paper? 

“It isn’t necessary…” the corpse whispers to her. 

She staggers and plummets to the floor. The smell of sweet pea pinches her nostrils as the poet struggles to sit up. His cheeks flush with warmth. His eyes flash, luminous. “One can never go backward,” he says. “You must always move on—try something new. Even if people disagree with your decision. What’s gone is gone. I’ve had to learn that the hard way.  Do you happen to have a cigarette?”

She gapes. This can’t be happening. He’s dead… It was confirmed. Could there have been a mistake? Her mind is sucked into a black hole as though she has been spun outside the universe and the molecules that make up her body no longer obey the laws of physics. Every hair on her body quivers as if shot with an electric current. She’s thrilled and terrified.

“I... I don’t smoke...”

“Just as well. Good for you—nasty habit. I’ve been trying to stop for years. It’s a bit cold in here, don’t you think?” 

Eva scrambles from the floor and runs to bring him a scarf. Nothing can happen to him—not now. She couldn’t live with herself if he relapsed. Jorgos sits still, naked, save the blue, checkered scarf Eva wraps around his neck. 

“I have to call the hospital, or an ambulance, or someone… or do something! I don’t know what... What to do… How do you feel?”

“I’m fine, thank you. I’m hungry.”

“Oh, of course, you must be starving! I’ll get you something to eat.” 

He shivers momentarily in the green-walled basement.  

“Oh, my God... You, poor, poor thing! Let me find you something warm to put on.” 

Eva is panic-stricken, unable to discern if what she is doing is right. She picks up an item of clothing and drops it to the floor, and then another, and another. Her mind is spinning so quickly, she can’t focus. Should she feed him or get a doctor? Can she even trust what’s happening is real? The truly dead were certainly easier to contend with. Now, she’s faced with the terrifying potential of the universe to marshal its photons and redistribute particles of energy for rebirth. But there’s no time to ponder the universe’s intention. Eva must make sure Jorgos is safe.

“Excuse me, but I’d rather not wear dead peoples’ clothing, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Oh, of course not! No, no, these are things that I’ve left here—my clothes—which will mostly be too small, but the hoodie will be fine, and I’ll give you a pair of my scrubs. Will that do?”

“Yes, thank you. You’re very kind. Most people would have just left me here with my privates hanging out.”

“Oh, no. That would never happen. We always cover the... the...”

“Dead.”

“The genitals…”

“Oh, right.”

I’m hallucinating, she thinks. It has happened before but nothing this extreme. It was just after she found out about her heart—or maybe before. Time has a funny way of rearranging itself when one is trying to keep track of it. 

The poet watches her, waiting. His presence is transcendent—not of Earth but perhaps the specter of a meteor hitting the Earth’s atmosphere and breaking apart. 

“My name is Eva.”

“Yes, I know. I’m Jorgos—you probably knew that.” He attempts to navigate the pant legs of the scrubs, but his joints are stiff. As he loses his balance, he collapses into her, his naked flesh against her stomach. Eva catches his hips, sits him back down, and eases his legs into the scrubs, all while noting the salt and pepper hair across his body. Eva’s gaze fell to his stomach, a tender pouch that hasn’t seen strenuous work nor excessive hunger in decades. She imagines the safety of pressing her belly to his flesh, enveloped in malleable skin that could accommodate her disquiet and quell the endless havoc the universe has dealt her.

“I’d really, really love some tandoori chicken.” He kisses her hand. 

His lips are full and soft and warm. He surely isn’t dead. That much is certain. He smiles and it’s radiant. Captivating. Her heart lightens. Every memory of anguish vanishes with his smile. 

“I’ll get you something to eat right away. Just let me call the director and let him know that... that you’re alive.”

“He won’t believe you.”

“Well... you’re here, sitting up, talking. Of course, he’ll believe me.”

“I’d almost rather you didn’t tell anyone, yet. I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with the repercussions. Can we do take-out?” 

Jorgos rises from the table and stands. His amber eyes blink erratically. His limbs try to cooperate as he investigates the chemicals, aspirator, tubes, and fluids in the room. The instruments alarm him momentarily. His breathing quickens. He lifts one arm over his head, then the other. He turns slowly. The stiffness in his body softens and his feet stay beneath him. Suddenly, he twirls and howls with joy, thrilled his body obeys. Eva looks up to see Jorgos sinuously moving through a Milonguero-style Tango while humming a melody she thinks she recognizes. She can imagine him, dancing the nights away on foreign shores under millions of stars, with men and women and desperados hurling themselves at his feet, perhaps not even aware of who he was but captivated by his unquenchable thirst for expression.

“Did you order the tandoori chicken?” He calls out.

“Of course…Right away.”

Eva orders food from her office, still stealing glances into the mortuary to watch Jorgos dancing. 

Perhaps, if she claims the poet is alive, it will somehow reverse this strange phenomenon, and he’ll die again. She can’t take that chance. Now that he’s here, there are so many things she has to talk to him about. There are so many questions she needs to ask… What did he do in death? What did he see? 

She remembers when she woke up in the hospital. Heart murmurs, they told her. Congenital. Nothing she could do about it but be prepared—or had they said aware? She had been sure death had taken her. While she lay in a coma, someone had read his poetry—it was one of those people employed to read to the still-living-and-not-yet-dead: 

This bright light is ours.
The searing rapturous unfolding of a billion stars,
Lay at our feet. There is no turning back.
Time and space bend to our desires 
and make a meal of shipwrecked dreams.

The hallucinations began shortly after. The dead who came to her—desperate for closure, anxious to tell her their tales—all implored her to consider their fate. Against her better judgment, Eva had become embroiled in long conversations with the deceased. Sometimes the dead told her what lip colour they preferred, or that the dress provided wouldn’t do. One woman made Eva change her clothing for the casket three times. The relatives thought Eva was crazy, but she couldn’t take the constant nattering of the newly-dead woman demanding to be buried in a rose-colored sheath. Have you ever tried to explain to someone that the dead are giving you directions about how to dress them? No, of course not. Others regaled her with life experiences that caused them great sorrow, insurmountable regret, or transient joy. Sometimes the dead asked her to complete tasks for them: confront an errant lover, file lawsuits against corrupt business partners, make sure their cat was fed. Eva relayed the requests to the funeral director. 

He’d listen intently, carefully. Sometimes, at Eva’s behest, he’d write things down in a leather-bound notebook kept for recording incidents that might demand creative solutions. Since he wasn’t capable of formulating a creative solution, he assured Eva it was best to never, ever, ever repeat anything she heard in the mortuary—to anyone. The funeral director would have let her go ages ago, but she was a miracle worker. The most difficult deaths were the ones Eva excelled at—the ones where distraught friends and relatives couldn’t let go. She conferred a dazzling life to the dead’s faces, as if they were only sleeping and at peace with the world. Once Eva was done with the deceased, it was as though the departed had forgiven all the transgressions committed against them in life and those who were left behind could take a deep breath and pretend they had been absolved. 

That’s what a good makeup artist was capable of—making those left behind believe the deceased had forgiven them of every cruel and unspeakable affront. It made Eva angry—listening to the stories of cruelty and remorse, hearing what people thought they had gotten away with as the corpse lay composed, sheltered from further altercation. Friends and relatives swarmed the reception room as her creations lay revealed, unable to respond to salacious gossip or lachrymose reveries. Fragments of stories leaked to Eva’s ears from the mourners. If only I’d called… Do you remember when? If only I had known… If only I hadn’t been so vile, so dismissive, so uncaring, so deceitful… If only… And Eva’s favourite, at least they’re at peace now... How convenient to believe peace will arrive with death. Through it all, the deceased lay serenely, never castigating their audience, choosing to ignore the negligence. But Eva knew.

•••

“I’d love a nice Pinot Grigio with our tandoori chicken.” 

He smiles. It’s glorious. She can see why men and women threw themselves at him when he was alive... or at least, he is still alive, but it is only the two of them in the funeral parlour and Eva is unsure of what to do next. What would happen tomorrow when his body was supposed to be on display? How would she explain it? She decides it doesn’t matter. Tomorrow is a different time.  

“I wasn’t abusing any substance, you know. I’m an addict, obviously, but I wasn’t using that night. You understand? ”

“No, of course not. I wasn’t thinking that... at all...”

“Oh, good. The tabloids are saying I’m a drug addict—which is true, of course. I just hate the fact that they keep saying it. I didn’t overdose the night I died. I wasn’t finished yet.” 

“I’m sorry about the papers... How do you know what people are saying? Could you read the tabloids while you were…?”

“Dead. Well, no, not read them, but I was aware of what was being said—somehow. I don’t know how.”

 “What do you mean, you weren’t finished?”

Jorgos pitches his hands into the air and shakes his fists at the ceiling. He is suddenly enraged. “I’m not finished! I’m not finished! I have more to do, to think, to feel!” He doubles over and sinks to the floor. Eva holds her breath. His wrath catches her off guard, but it dissipates as quickly as it comes. He’s worn out with the effort it took to summon so much fury. Eva kneels and puts her arms around him. 

 “People followed me… Children, dogs, babies, old people, young people… A horse, a raccoon.”

“They followed you?”

“I couldn’t get rid of them. They were all dead, passing through the same space as me, searching for a resting area, looking for a companion so they weren’t alone. It’s terrible to be alone at death...”

“It is terrible to be alone, Jorgos…”  Eva wants to say more but is afraid of revealing too much. The thought of searching for someone, even after death, drains her of hope. She recalls the sense of anticipation and elation Jorgos’ poetry gave her. Now he was here. What respite could he offer? 

The fragile heart before him pounds in turmoil, resonating with his flesh. Jorgos feels the hesitancy of Eva’s breath—the stumble of her heart in its unending pursuit of light. “We tiptoe over harsh landscapes and try not to drown in the cavalier disregard of reason and intellect…” he says. “Did you know that raccoons see with their hands? Isn’t that amazing? Touch is how they locate their place in the world and determine where food is and if they’re safe…”

“I…I never knew that…”

“Yes, they’re very intelligent and very mischievous. Light for them is accessed through what they can touch. You see, they have a heightened awareness of their world, always connected to whatever environment they find themselves in. Do you know the light is always with us? But most of the time, we never see it. We ignore what is before us, what might liberate us. We remain alone.”

“Oh Jorgos, I’m so sorry you were alone. I would have given anything to be with you...”

“Thank you for saying that. I appreciate it.” Jorgos looks up at her. His eyes betray tears that trail down to his chin. “I’ve found you, Eva. No one should be alone...” His spirit exhausted—his breath slows, his mind cools.

“The food will be here soon, and you’ll feel better after you eat.”

He closes his eyes as she rocks him back and forth like a lost child. His helplessness makes her heart weep. She knew well the monstrous longing grief levied, how impossible it was to extricate desolation, how incalculable loss could be. She feared he would tax his heart again, feared he would leave her alone. A buzzer goes off, and both Eva and Jorgos jump. 

“Delivery! Fantastic!” Just like that, his mood brightens. 

Jorgos pulls the hoodie Eva has given him closer to his body. He attempts to smooth his unruly hair. A mirror over a cracked porcelain sink reflects a face he recalls from youth. Good. He wants to look presentable when they share their last dinner on Earth. He feels warmth, as if the sun has shed a layer and deemed him the recipient of a hidden galaxy, a warp of time that needs no compass. There is no longer any need to curse an indifferent world. 

“Don’t forget to tip the delivery boy,” Jorgos calls out. He’d been an extravagant tipper in life. Indeed, he’d been much too generous. 

“I did,” Eva calls back. 

Azrael, the head delivery boy at Bombay Palace, is startled to hear a man’s voice call out from the office. Eva never, ever has anyone with her while she works. She smiles at Azrael and hands him a twenty dollar tip. That will take his mind off the voice of the recently dead but currently living poet. 

“I’m glad you like spicy food, because if not, I don’t know what I would have done. I’ve been dying for tandoori for a month. Well, I guess technically, I did die—not for the want of food, of course.”

 “Jorgos, after we eat, I really need to get you to a doctor and make sure you’re going to be okay.”

“I’ll be okay. I’m a bit worried about your heart, though.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I hear things…” Jorgos rips open the styrofoam containers and devours his tandoori chicken—licks his fingers between every bite, barely stops for a breath. 

“What do you mean?”

“When I was suspended, waiting, without my conscious thoughts controlling me, there were a lot of voices. People gossip, mostly, and incessantly. Quite annoying, really…” He stops to pull the remaining shreds of chicken from a thigh bone. “You can’t get them to shut up. They try to get you to go with them, promising “information” but what you eventually learn is that they don’t know shite.”

“But you knew about my heart?” 

“Yes. Is there more rice?”

“Jorgos, who told you about my heart condition?”

“Do you know what I most liked about not existing on an Earthly plane?”

“No...”

“No parameters. Anything is possible… Then, you understand. You’re free.”

Parameters. Eva had always been proficient at creating boundaries. Her heart stopped her from pursuing a life that could have been lived more fully. She was afraid someone would love her and expect too much, smother her with yearning, gall her with their compassion. She’d seen so many women grow up and fester with longing, turn into abandoned shells, never find the right person to love and instead, settle for a callous misfit, a wretch, who cared nothing for their soul. Or they’d lost the love of their lives and settled—just settled, and it was lonely. Loneliness. The worst type of loneliness was when someone bequeathed themselves to you and then cast you adrift, let you flounder yet still claimed your consciousness and emotions for themselves. The private despair, the never-ending craving for more, was exhausting. She’d heard it all before. The girls would turn into women, make bad choices, get old, and end up on her table. They’d relay to Eva all the horrible indignities and slights they endured at the hands of someone who had sworn to protect them, love them, care… Look at me, the women would tell her, look where I am. Don’t end up like me... Then, they’d tell her the rouge she used was the wrong colour, and they’d want her to remove all the gray from their hair and then cover all the wrinkles around their mouth and so on and so on and so on. Eva never wanted to love someone she couldn’t live without. How horrible to lose a love that punctured your heart—made it frail with craving. One more breath. Inhale. The tandoori finished, the wine over, Eva and Jorgos sit close and conspire. 

“Let’s have one dance, my love.” Jorgos takes her in his arms, a scene she dreamed of since first seeing the poet’s beautiful face on the jacket of his first book. It begins to get close—the air, the sound of his voice, the wine, the tandoori chicken. The universe begins to spin inward. Eva can feel it. His warmth overcomes her. She is tired. His arms are safe, and she wants nothing more than to stay with him in this world, whatever it is. They dance to the song in his head. He hums a few bars—a slow Tango. The clock strikes 3:00 a.m. and life, as we know it, stops, and shifts silently to accommodate a blood-red moon.

•••

When the funeral director enters the mortuary the next morning, Jorgos is no longer on the table. He’s alarmed. Eva is a small woman, and she wouldn’t have been able to move a dead weight such as the poet. More worrisome, his legion of followers was fanatical, so it seems entirely possible they broke in and stole his body. It has happened before with some other unremarkable celebrity—at least, that was the funeral director’s contention. He never understood the need for people to idolize those whom they would never know. The pragmatic funeral director would also never understand how loneliness pushes people into reservoirs of dark hunger. 

He steps further into the office and is paralyzed. Eva and Jorgos lie in each other’s arms on the linoleum floor. They appear to be alive. The funeral director is stricken. The scene is macabre, yet so tender and devastating that he weeps. They are as lost lovers, peaceful now in each other’s embrace, unable to feel sorrow or pain. 

“Her heart gave out…” the medics say. They have no explanation for the poet. 

Though not capable of creative solutions, the funeral director believes sorrow has the power to stop a heart. 

Since neither the poet nor the mortician have any close family, it is deemed appropriate they be buried together. Of course, details can’t be released to the public. It would be too confusing, too shocking, and too many questions would be raised. The funeral director writes a note in his leather-bound journal: Private funeral. Azrael brings lilacs from his mother’s garden. He wears a tie for the first time. It is his first funeral. 

“They ordered wine,” he tells the funeral director, “and I heard them talking. He told her to tip me.”

“Azrael, this is not the time or place...”

“She spoke to the dead. They came for her.”

“Her heart gave out,” the funeral director snaps. He has no patience for a young man too simple to be challenged by everyday life, who would never understand the vertiginous doctrines of human nature, or why people allowed themselves to pine away.  

“I heard them. They spoke about love, and pain, and how people misunderstood them and why poetry was so important and why people dismiss the things they desire, and they danced and laughed, and he gave her a choice. Come with him or stay and wait. I didn’t mean to listen or watch, but I saw him—alive and dancing...”

“Alright, Azrael, alright. I understand.” It was pointless to argue with a simpleton. Obviously, Eva fell into despair and took it upon herself to stage one final sentimental moment with someone she idolized. It would be difficult to replace such a competent mortician with such a kind heart. If only the dead would keep to themselves.