The Diener

He pulled the bluish, transparent smock from his locker. His most reliable equipment, it had his name printed on it by means unknown: Jocelin Cain. It was covered in a brown, coarse substance, a mixture of blood and rust, and in this place it was near-impossible to tell one from the other, or remove either. He licked his finger and drew a Y on it, extending from the left shoulder tie, branching in the center, running down a foot past the navel, and then up again to the right shoulder tie. Middle finger moistened, he drew a heart in the center. Old habits die hard.
The stiff's identity was determined by means of a standardized dossier, and a toetag. It seemed so wrong, so informal. But the determinination of ethics is not the job of the diener. After all: dieners are not philosophers, or gods.
Mary Abel Grigoire
673 Valiant Dr.
Tulsa, OK
DOB: 03/09/77
TOD: App. 21:30 GMT,11/19/06
LOD: Minneapolis, MN
Response Time: 77 HR
Drawer: 391
Blood Type: O
Somatotype: Ectomorphic
Relationship Status: Single, Unmarried
Closest Living: Alma Thayer- Omaha, NB

Cain closed the dossier, leaving fingerprints of half-congealed blood, and placed it in Dr. Endrizzi's inbox. He plodded deliberately over to Drawer 391, and slid it open. The corpse was pale, and beginning to frost. It was well-preserved. She was a slender woman, just shy of her thirtieth birthday, with long, sweeping auburn hair. Her face was narrow, and slightly mousy, but not unattractive. It was apparent that she had long since set into rigor mortis, and most of her was just beginning to decay. She had remained in the freezer for several months, since they had received her in November of last year. They were nearly forced to inter her elsewhere, while they waited for a warrant of autopsy, as her body was beginning to emit a foul, acrid stench. Redemption came, however, when news was heard that the family had become concerned, and were flying to Minnesota to observe the autopsy.
The circumstances of her death were rumored quite perplexing. She was found, it said in the dossier, lying undisturbed in a cushioned armchair when her neighbor came to fetch some milk. She had been dead for several days, and was already beginning to wither away. And this- this minor bit of anecdote- was really all that was known. The family had every right to be concerned.
Cain picked up the cadaver and dragged it, rigidly, over to the marble autopsy table. The older funeral parlors had these autopsy chambers with marble or porcelain. They still had these new tools, but the chambers, they were ornate deals. The family had the option to hold the dissection in a larger hospital in Minneapolis, but had kindly declined, opting instead for a smaller affair and a minimized ruckus by holding it in the "family-run" Emmet's Funeral Parlor, Eau Claire, MN.
First, he photographed the body. He made notes of the clothing, and removed it, folding it carefully as experienced dieners do.
The prosector would enter soon. Cain knew the system well, and ran the rut. Taking an new obsidian blade from the tray, and screwing it securely into his favorite bone-handled scalpel body, Cain began the operation. The first wound was made on the left shoulder, and slowly, silently, he drew it down, following the contour of her left breast. Upon accidentally grazing the adipose tissue below the lower contours of her breast, he was forced to carefully, laboriously slice through the remainder. The doctor would be infuriated. Deviating slightly from the contour, he peaked the incision near the xiphoid process, and drew the blade downward, directly towards the navel. Gracefully avoiding her inward bellybutton, by drawing the blade around it counterclockwise, he continued the incision to her pubic bone.
He took a Stryker saw, and started to remove the calvarium of her skull. When the brain was exposed, he submerged it in formalin. He turned to Mary.
"What happened to you?" It was a rhetorical question. It needed to be asked, as all things do.
Cutting the lights on the way out, he exited, leaving her sitting there, alone and scared.

Suicide Note of a Dog

I am tired of this life, now. I have no opposable thumbs. I am miserable. Sometimes, when you watch television, I try to watch, too. But I do not understand English, so the result is confusing and painful. I try to amuse myself with small animals and the like. I am bored. You lopped my gonads off, so they entire point of my existence (i.e. the propagation of my species) has been nullified and erased. You are a bastard.
Confessions: I sleep on your new couch while you are away, or preoccupied. I shat on the floor last week, and I am not sorry for it. That's what you get for leaving my in my kennel until eleven o' clock. Bitch.
I cannot use a knife or a gun, as I cannot hold them. My body structure does not allow me to hang myself succesfully, because my skull and spine are not aligned in the proper and necessary pattern. I cannot reach the glass cleaner or the Jet-Dry. Thus, I shall starve myself.
Sincerely and unapologetically,
Doc Hollywood Redfearn

Narratives

It is March. The hydrangeas and sweetbays have flowered early, and in their turn, have withered away. It is misty, and rightly so. It spires and flows as a river over the asphalt creekbeds outside my door. I have never seen something echo so. The traffic lights tint it red, orange, and green. There is something so wrong about the tainting of mist. I am pushed to guilt. I walk inside.
I am sickened. I walk upstairs, and hold my gut as if restraining it. It is swelled with guilt. I vomit. It is acrid, and the bile wells in the back of my throat. It tastes yellow, as if I had swallowed a battery. I tear inside. I am sickened.
Something is wrong.
I am falling apart.
The sound from the speakers is tinny, now. My ears echo with it, and a pressure forces my eardrums inward to touch my brain and drive me mad and erase my memory. With any luck.
I can see the veins in my arm, and am quite concerned by them. They pulse. I squeeze my fingers in upon themselves, and the little capillaries exaggerate. I imagine them bursting. They would be dark, surely. Am I sick for that? Am I wrong? Should I be put away? Or should I just bleed antimatter until the world disappears and I rock forward.
Lipstick. Heh. Guilt.
Fuck it.

Kinda fun to write like that. Subject-verb. It's easy to do. Like acid. Smiles all around.