Tache Noir

Warm soapy water washed over the feathers. The detergent would help to keep the down from flying everywhere in the room and clogging the filtration vents. 

My gloved hands smoothed the feathers along the keel, the breast bone protruding slightly as the buff-colored vanes and barbs separated to reveal a thin layer of translucent tan skin stretched across the bone. 

Click. 

I attached the #22 blade to the scalpel handle and it locked into place. Placing it along the keel, I ran a two-inch long cut across the surface. Pressing my thumbs in between the skin’s feathers and the muscle, I tensed and gently peeled the two apart. The resulting crackle of separating skin sent a shiver up my spine.  

Ducks were always easy to peel. 

I continued to separate the skin from the rest of the body, cautiously and expertly removing the muscle, bone, and underlying organs.  

The cut wire for the neck, the stuffed dummy body, and black glass eyes all awaited me on the table to my left.  

As I placed the artificial pieces into their organic frame, the duck started to assume its natural shape. Small stitching replaced where my blade had split and the preserved skin slowly closed. I spread the wings to give the illusion of flight and thought about eventually placing the hen on a piece of driftwood. It would serve as a good background scene for the mount.  

After carefully twisting the painted wings into the correct position and curling the crest to its greatest advantage, I reached for the glass eyes and placed them into the head.  

“Hmm” 

I smiled, glass eyes staring back at me. I looked at my walls around me, at the dozens of eyes looking back that showed no anger or fear or sadness. Just a cold, beautiful black.  

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! 

The alarm clock in the corner of the room broke my prayerful state, its red numbers signaling I had about 15 minutes to meet Clara at the restaurant. 

“I can finish you later.” 

I placed my prize down at the edge of the work bench. The customer would be able to wait until this evening for the duck to be completed. I removed my nitrile gloves, tossing them into the trashcan, and my blue work smock, setting it carefully on the chair. I then tried to wash the smell off my hands before leaving the house.  

I kept my hands in my pockets as I walked, shuffling across the street once the cars cleared. 

“How’s it going, Roman?” 

The owner of our nearby newsstand smiled from his booth, yelling over one of his patrons. 

I waved unenthusiastically, and made no further attempt at contact as I passed by, quickly jogging along the road, much to the despair of the shop owner, who was still shouting even as I slipped out of earshot.  

“Why do people insist on conversation?” I muttered.  

I continued walking, lightly tapping my middle finger to my thumb as I moved along. As I got closer to downtown, more and more people began to crowd my sidewalk, and I had to weave through the children and couples who seemed incapable of picking the same pace as everyone else. My tapping intensified as I went and I soon had a visible tremor in my right hand. 

I made to cross the street but just as my foot committed to leaving the sidewalk, a bicyclist jetted between the curb and an idling car sending a spray of water, mud, and leaves to decorate my front. 

“Damnit!”  

I stood there for a moment, dripping onto the sidewalk and watching the water soak into, and undoubtedly stain, my shirt and pants. I brushed away the leaves, deciding not to return in order to change clothes. I would be late if I did.  

I instead opted to move to the inside of the sidewalk, cutting between families and downtown shoppers instead of risking another bike.

There were so many of them, like cattle shoved into a too-small railcar. The beasts bustled along mooing and stomping and trampling. The greed and want in their eyes was a wildfire, consuming everything in front of them with a ravenous fury from the day they were born to the day of their slaughter.

But then, I saw her. Sitting at the front windowed booth of Dinna’s. Perfectly still, her eyes faced the window in a blank stare. She looked like she had been painted into the scene, a quiet observer to the chaos of the crowds outside. Her calm seeped into every pore of my body. Clara.

She was wearing a brown dress, a thin belt sitting high on her waist. Small gold hoops decorated her ears, wrapping up the edge to her hairline. Her hair was down, the golden waves tamed slightly by a multicolored scarf that wrapped around the front and trailed down her back. She had a single curl that hung by her face. She would probably be wearing the brown pair of flats she had bought last year on clearance. I smiled.  

Ding ding. 

I entered Dinna’s, the bell announcing my intrusion into her sacred stillness and moved into the seat opposite her in the booth. 

“There he is!” 

A smile graced her face and my shoulders sunk with the release of any residual stress I might have had. 

“What happened to your shirt?!” Alarm seemed to spread on Clara’s face and I followed her gaze down to the dried aftermath of the bicycle incident. 

“Oh.” I had almost forgotten it had happened, her presence crowding all other thoughts from my head. “It’s nothing some soap won’t fix.” 

“Hmpf” 

Clara’s face scrunched slightly so that her nose wrinkled and three faint lines appeared on her forehead. 

“This one looks nice.” I said, avoiding her eyes by gesturing up to her hair. 

The lines disappeared. 

“Well I certainly paid enough for it. Little itchy though. Do you like it?” 

“I prefer the shorter one you used to wear.”  

She huffed.  

“That old thing? I haven’t worn that in months!” 

“It framed your face better.” 

She laughed—a short but clear chirp— and tilted her head back until it softly hit the back of the booth. 

“You were the only person who liked that wig, Roman.” 

I shrugged. 

“So what are we eating?” 

It occurred to me throughout the evening that Clara was one of the few people I could actually stand to be around. And as we walked through the city park after food, I was so calm and content that the joggers, walkers, and cyclists didn’t bother me as much as they usually did. I had known Clara for two years now. Two years of peace, of finally having an escape from the busy-ness of the rest of the world, who seemed to press and squeeze my patience daily until it burst like a rotten, bloated deer carcass. Working in taxidermy usually afforded me the respite from the public and their problems, but maybe I could finally start to see what all those doctors had been recommending for years. There was something to be said for old fashioned human interaction.  

“Hey are you even listening to me?” 

I hadn’t been. I turned to Clara, the images in my brain leaving me.  

“Sorry, what?” 

“I said I have an appointment at Dr. Kramer’s next week. Can you give me a ride?” 

A finch flew from one of the magnolias to the foot of a bench, pecking at a bit of discarded seed on the ground. I imagined it on one of the walls back home. 

“What happened to the Toyota?” 

“Still in the shop.” 

The bird continued to pick. 

“Yeah I can give you a ride.” 

“I didn’t even tell you what day it was.” 

A breeze shifted the seed slightly, and ruffling its feathers, the finch returned to the magnolia.  

“Nah, you’re good. I can give you a ride.” 

She wrapped her arm around mine and squeezed, her fingers pressing into my skin. That night I dreamt of tawny feathers with bits of pink.  

But I never gave Clara a ride the following week to see Dr. Kramer. Instead, I found myself sitting in a hard plastic chair in the back of an old room. One of the kinds of halls with basic walls and curtains, so that the scene can be changed frequently to fit whatever style you might choose.  A line of people walked up to a casket at the front in an ugly parade of tears and snot.  

I began to tap my finger against my thumb. 

“Do you want to go up and see her before I close the casket?” 

His sickeningly sweet voice made my skin crawl. 

I scoffed. No, I don’t want to go up and see her. That’s not her. My Clara is alive. Why would I want to see her now? Like this?  

My tapping intensified. 

“Are you sure, sir?” 

The director’s cologne was too strong. I have to make him go away. Anything to make him go away. I stood up, the force of my movement scooting the chair against the tile under me. Someone to my right turned and looked at me, and I reached to still my shaking hand at my side.  

I started walking.  

Everyone in the room seemed entranced by the object in the front. Their eyes were fixed on the polished box, their breathing punctuated with handfuls of tissue pressed to faces and the occasional sigh. 

Am I supposed to be crying right now? The sniffs and tears of my counterparts were like needles in my head, and I dug my nails into my hand to make them stop. I almost turned around. Twice.  

But then I saw her... 

She was still. So beautifully still. Her hands neatly placed below her chest; a pale shade of pink on her lips and cheeks.  

My breathing hitched and I reached down to touch her face. 

“Clara.”  

After years of doctor appointments and hospital stays, months of poison running through her veins for treatment, hours and hours of agony only stopped by a few brief moments of peace. She was finally free. 

I let my hand trail down the side of her skin, feeling the smooth cold exterior, until my nail caught on a piece of her hair and I focused on the wig.  

“Ugh.”  

The director had chosen the long one. I looked back to where this so-called artist of the dead had slunk to the side of a mourner, his head nodding slowly and his hand resting on her bare shoulder.  

I returned my attention to Clara. Why had no one told the director this was the wrong wig? I rubbed the false curls in my fingers, feeling the synthetic fibers roll against my skin. The one detail tainted her, ruined what could have been a perfect display. A hot tear rolled down my cheek.

“I’m so sorry this happened, Clara. I’m so sorry.” 

The following day I stood and watched Clara get lowered into the ground, her beautiful face ruined by that golden lie on top of her head. And the following night, I paced at her grave, cursing myself for not fixing it, for not fixing her.  

The morning brought a cold sunrise to my sleepless hours of blackness. Obligated by the work this new day required, I returned to my shop. 

I turned and walked to the bench, humming slightly as I pulled two gloves out of the box and slipped them onto my hands. I then looked over this morning’s project on my table, like so many others, waiting for me to make them worthy of display.  

I had already cleaned, dressed, and prepped it, and now it only required some final details to ensure it was ready. Digging into my pocket, I retrieved a key on a short chain and pressed it into a drawer to my right. The drawer scraped open, and I retrieved a thick plastic bag full of folded pieces of silk.  

I placed one on the desktop and unfolded it. 

Returning to the table, I reached down and pulled off that horrible yellow thing the funeral home had put on her head.  

I threw it to the ground, moving to grab a brush from the counter. I carefully swept off the specks of dirt from her crown, the wig having hidden them from my initial pass of the body. I had also redressed her in a pale, dusty-orange outfit. It matched her personality more than the blue she had previously worn. 

Bending forward, I reached behind Clara’s neck and lifted, fitting the short dirty-blonde wig over her smooth head. Returning her head to the table, I traced my hand down her face, leaning to kiss her forehead. As I stood up her eyes had opened slightly, showing the “Tache Noir” coloration common of the deceased. I smiled, thinking of what she must be seeing.  

A cold, beautiful black. She was finally perfect.  

“What should we do today, my little finch?”