Necrofiche
07.15.10
Albert walked up to the funeral parlour feeling happier than he had in a long time. For the last few years he had been performing his mortician duties listlessly, but today he felt that he had a purpose. He was about to enter using the front door, when he saw that the funeral director was in the reception area with clients. He decided to access the mortuary via the side entrance; since the death of his daughter four years previously, his presence made clients uncomfortable. Affronted by this at first, Albert had soon come to realise how his countenance might be upsetting to them. Grief had made him so gaunt that it seemed his skull was only covered by a paper-thin layer of skin. He understood how the prominent cheekbones and the sunken, dark-ringed eyes might perhaps be too reminiscent of the Reaper himself to the recently bereaved.
In the mortuary, he paced the room while listening for activity in the rest of the building. When he finally heard the funeral director drive off, he breathed a sigh of relief. It was imperative that he be alone in the house with his latest charge. He placed onto the mortuary table the body of an elderly woman who had died in her sleep. His boss had told him about her; she had three daughters and five granddaughters. She had lived through such a wealth of little girls, whereas he had not even been granted a full three years of joy before his little girl had been taken away from him. She had enjoyed a long and happy marriage whereas he, at 37, went home to a catatonic woman every night – his wife had been this way since their daughter’s death. He felt resentment welling up towards the blameless corpse laid out in front of him and had to take deep breaths before he could continue.
“This will not do – this will not do at all,” he said aloud, and the sound of his voice calmed him a little. The Shaman had been adamant about this – he must clear his mind of all emotion before starting the extraction process. Albert walked to the sink and washed his face with cold water. Invigorated, he performed the relaxation stretches the Shaman had showed him, then sat cross-legged on the floor and meditated until he felt calm enough to go through with it. He went over the checklist in his head:
– Apply the extraction balm to the woman’s temples, and then to his own.
– Fall into the necessary trance via the meditation methods he had been taught.
– Take in the visions, making sure to stop after the first wave of them.
The last point had sounded strange to him, and he had enquired as to its purpose. The Shaman had given him a look so grave that he had felt the need to bow his head. Albert could remember verbatim the explanation proffered.
You must show mercy to the one whose memories you are stealing. After the first wave of extraction, memories build up momentum and you will not be able to stop her entire memory bank from transporting itself into you. Her soul will be left without the binding forces that hold it together and will dissipate into this world instead of going into the next. After she is interred, she will never get to the other side, will never be reborn. You will have committed murder in its most absolute sense.
They had stood in silence for a while after, Albert taking it all in, the Shaman watching him closely, reading him. The next words spoken had been the defining moment for Albert.
There would be repercussions for you, too, of course. The Cosmos does not forgive such transgressions. Your soul would not be permitted to enter the Otherworld; you would roam the desolate Midworld for all eternity, with only your bad memories as companions.
Albert felt an extreme sense of calm as he went through the steps to prepare the woman for the extraction. He reached the trance state with an ease he would never have expected, and the visions started hitting him. When the first wave come to an end, he threw himself deeper into the trance and continued to take in the woman’s memories until there were no more to steal. As he exited the trance state, all the new memories fought for a place in the forefront of his mind, but he pushed them back. He could not be distracted now – he had to remain in this heightened state until he had gone through with his entire plan.
At home, he found his wife in her usual spot, by the window, staring outside but seeing nothing. He went to her and rubbed the ointment onto her temples, then some more onto his own. He brought himself back into the trance, and pushed the new memories into her. He took himself out of the trance before his own memories could pollute her new ones and fell to the floor, spent. When he looked up at her, he knew his plan had worked. She hadn’t moved, but a smile once again adorned her face, and though she still stared into the distance, the nature of her gaze had changed. He had caught snippets of the memories as they had travelled from him to her so he had a good idea of what she could see. Little girls playing, laughing, pouting. Little girls seeking comfort for grazed knees and perceived slights. Little girls doing all that her daughter would have done. Most importantly, little girls growing up.
The idea of spending eternity trapped in the Midworld did not frighten him; instead, it felt right. Had he not had those few beers before picking his daughter up from that birthday party, he would have seen the other car coming sooner, and would have swerved quicker. Eternity in desolation held no horror for him; he was already damned.
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Tags: Bereaved, Fantasy, Flash Fiction, fridayflash, Horror, Memories, Writing
Midworld is Leeds right?
What i love about your work is how you create whole logic systems where with each strand (the fate of the mortician’s soul as well as that of the corpse) you weave a wonderfully imaginative and creative thread. There are no loose ends and yet the weave is entirely your own. Nothing feels derivative.
marc
A story, a mystical cosmology and a punch in the gut ending all in under 1,000 words.
Fantastic work as always.
Also- LOVE LOVE LOVE the title…
The title is brilliant. The story more so. You should weave magic carpets on the side.
:0)
This is magnificent. What a tortured soul.
This one will stay with me a long time, I think. Excellent story.
Cool title, cool story. I don’t suppose this good deed for wifey will help his damned condition. (pun intended)
WOW. That’s amazing. You built a world, one in which we are given and understand the rules and the character’s intent, in this short span. This is nothing short of amazing work.
And yeah on the title; awesomeness. Made of pure, unfiltered WIN.
FANTASTIC story! I absolutely adore the concept, and the execution was sublime. It will be a long, long time before this one stops rattling round inside my mind.
A truly amazing and enthralling story. At no point while I was reading this, was I able to know what was coming. Brilliant from beginning to end.
Ohhhhhh I didn’t see that coming. It’s a shame he’s screwed that old woman over for eternity but at least he’s managed to make some sort of amends towards his wife. I very much enjoyed this!
You’ve managed to set up a layered story with a big history with only a few extra lines. I’m amazed and really impressed. There’s nothing straightforward or predictable about the ending, which impresses me more. I like this a lot.
What everyone else has said too, Mazzz, but wow, what a character. This guy is great! There’s something about the way you wrote him that really, really intrigues me.
I could read a whole book about poor, twisted Albert working in the funeral home. The setting is wonderful and fascinating.
I’m always in awe of the idea behind your story, and then you pull it all together in such a tight and tidy package. Albert, what a fabulous character. I agree with Cathy — there COULD be a book here. The ending was knock-your-socks-off great. Peace…
Mazz, you always have such nice pacing and forward movement in your stories. Dark, disturbing and completely satisfying.
I guess I could just say “ditto” to what everyone else has said. 🙂
This is outstanding work Maria. What I like most is that, as I read, I thought I knew what would happen, and then the next sentence told me I was wrong, and the next, and the next. Simply incredible work!
You kept me guessing right through. Wonderfully written piece!
This is the best piece of fiction I have read for a long time. It’s practically perfect.
Very original and incredibly well written piece! I agree with Michael that your pacing is fantastic. Although it’s a dark tale, it was like a fresh breeze to me. Thank you for that. 🙂
Reminds me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but more melancholy. Didn’t see the ending coming either and well structured. Beautiful.
Beautiful exectuion and just fantastic. Wow, I’m blown away.
Well written. Too close to home on this one, too. My son will be sitting very close to him although not guilty, the perception of guilt is just as bad.
“You will have committed murder in its most absolute sense.” I can’t imagine a more powerful line. Disturbing yet tremendous story.
The idea for this piece is amazing, a fantastic look at hurt and healing. And the writing is top-notch. This blew me away. Thanks.
You are very good at setting up Fantasy worlds, Mazz, just like so many commenters are praising you for. I like the little flourishes and comfortable reflections on the worlds, like his resignation to staying.
Such a complex piece, expertly woven. The ending gives that extra little stab of emotion.
Wow, powerful stuff indeed. Well written and one hell of a payoff!
Awesome! Such a tangled web and a painful reveal at the end.
Complex, multi-layered and such a world you create with these… Great one, Mazz…
Wow… How powerful and sad. I love the idea of stealing people’s memories. This is really great
There is so much to this piece. Others have said what I’d say about your pacing and character development, twists and cosmology. It’s really wonderful, both light and dark at the same time. Had a very Six Feet Under feel, but with another notch of magical realism.
Love the rules, especially presented as bullet points, my kind of writing, fantastic!
What a hard hitting piece, great ways with words and really draws you into the story almost immediately. So many different things going on but yet revolving around one man
Excellent. Had to read that last paragraph twice to get it…
Brilliant!
I see I’ve got more than 30 comments ahead of me, so I doubt I can really add anything new, but I would nevertheless like to tell you how much I enjoyed it right from the beginning and compliment your skills. With fewer than a thousand words to work with, you managed a captivating story, a complete character, and twists that kept the reading guessing just what Albert was up to.
The title itself is amazingly creative and quite appropriate. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to read this story, and it didn’t let me down.
Thanks so much for writing and sharing this piece with us.
The previous commenters have summed up my feelings about the story and the title, so anything more would be repetitive. I just wanted to tell you wonderful job.
I was drawn in totally from the start, Mazz. I compelling read and a great penance for the man in the end. Well done. A brilliant title as well, by the way.
Wow, that was excellent, Maria. You took it to a deeper level than I expected and really turned it into a masterpiece. I could see it coming that he was going to take all the woman’s memories, but not for the noble (though perhaps misguided) cause he had in mind. It leaves him as a sympathetic character rather than a monster. Very nicely done.
~jon
Exquisite. You left nothing out, the pain and surrender and relief (short lived though it may be)are all there to haunt me. This one will stay a long time. Well done.
Divine. Compact. Complete. Dark. Truthful. A joy to read.
Wow, I love this story. And he’s right; our own private hell is much worse then any other punishment they could give.
Wonderfully written, but I feel horrible for the woman whose soul he murdered. So, in a sense, he’s responsible for 2 deaths. At least his wife is happy, but at what cost?
This story is just perfectly told. Perfect.
Oh, that was just perfect. It was all too clear that he wouldn’t stop after the first wave, but the why of it was perfection itself.
And then the deeper why behind it all…
Masterful writing, and masterfully invisible story construction.
Really, really well done.
I’m back like a bad penny. Just wanted to tell you I have a little something for you over on my blog, for all the terrific flash you do.
~jon
I enjoyed this. There was an essentially human nature to the conflict and the course this took.
Truly outstanding work. I agree with all the previous comments, so I’ll just tell you this: I volunteered to help edit BOFF and I was lucky enough to be given your two stories. It was the easiest job I’ve ever had.
Excellent story and beautifully written. Well done. 🙂
You’re good at taking familiar theme and turning it on its ear. The title is cool. I like the roundness of this, the entry and exit completing a circle. This story also hits close to me, as the subject of memory transfer comes up in my novel, Raven Memory.