The Mortuary

The Mortician had been looking for his wife all night. He knew she was drinking again. She always disappeared for days at time, when the demons of alcohol consumed her.

He went to the old, abandoned jailhouse, where years ago, he learned and taught his art. Embalming was taught in the basement, on the inmates who had passed away. Their bodies were never claimed, nor missed.

It never felt wrong at the time.

He didn’t know until later that they weren’t all dead. He didn’t know that he was their executioner in the death penalty they never received.

Sometimes, the guards just enjoyed it.

He felt an eerie coldness as he walked in. One that filled him with regrets and reminded him of the practices he should have never participated in.

He looked at the cobwebs, and they reminded him of everything he was left with on the inside, after years of doing this. The practices, this marriage, the misdeeds he had done upon society, worst yet, to himself.

They all loved him; he hated himself.

He moved toward the stairs, he started to smell the old familiar smell that he loved so deeply. It was her. She always had a distinct smell, for which she was known. It was somewhere between vanilla-honey-tobacco, and heaven.

Chanel No. 5.

He had found her.

He followed the scent down the hallway, through the old door ----

-there was his wife- collapsed in a corner.

She held a familiar drink, as it spilled over her hand.

He took it from her hand, lifted it to his face, and deeply inhaled the familiar scent of black licorice.

The Green Fairy.

He looked around the room, to see if anyone else was there. She lay alone, in her sickly state. The crates of Absinthe stacked in the corner, surrounded by glass jugs of water, canisters of sugar cubes, and the flat, perforated knife on the table in the corner.

It was there he spotted the other glass.

Someone else had, indeed, been there.

He smelled the familiar floral scent but couldn't quite recall where he last experienced its sweetness.

She sat in the corner, mumbling to herself. Her once perfect makeup was now lipstick smeared across her face, black rubbed from her eyes, tear-stained cheeks. A black short bob wig laid next to her, exposing her curly red hair, which was lined in silver. She had undone her corset, that once left her looking slim and curvy, to expose a body that she wished didn’t exist.

She was nothing like she imagined herself in the wormwood induced hallucinations. It was an alternate reality, she should never visit, but this addiction leaves her weak.

All he understood of the mumbling was the laughter that left him uneasy.

He sat beside her, took her in his arms, and held her tight. He wanted her to feel safe with him. He wanted to feel safe with her.

As he held her, he started to drift off to sleep, as he had not slept since her disappearance. He was relieved she was safe, despite the truths that lie beneath.

His eyes fell heavily. As they started to close, he saw a suit jacket on the chair in the corner. He started to wonder who it belonged to, but it was too late.

He never saw her slowly lift her dress or slip the knife from the garter belt.

The last thing he felt was the plunging into his heart.