A Bad Day at the Embalming Table (writing exercise in progress)
Andrea felt the corpse's hands rise up and rest against her shoulders. Setting down her disinfectant, she brushed them off and watched impatiently as the arms fell slowly back to rest on the gurney. No respect for personal boundaries, she said. Probably a real nurse-pincher back at the home, huh.
As she leaned back over to clean around his mouth, the faintest moan began to pass between his lips
"hhhuuuuuuuh"
she dabbed the cloth over his lips, intermittently muffling the noise. "huuu-mmmm-uhhhh-mm".
She tried harmonizing with the groan for a moment, but decided that together they sounded a bit like a rusty old harmonica. Finally, she set the cloth down and pressed her hand down on the cadaver's chest. "huuu-UHH!" he squealed as the last bit of oxygen was pushed out.
The loud buzz of her phone on the side table startled her. She'd only just set it to 'vibrate' last night. Leaning over the table to check for a possible emergency call, she saw Tim's name and number over a man's face with a close-lipped grin and pair of glasses. Ugh, she thought. What does he want now? Well, he'd fought with her over being too busy to make Thanksgiving, he'd gone overseas on vacation, and now he was back...He's going to chew me out for not calling him on his trip, isn't he. She thought. For god's sake! I'm not here to prove his doubts about me wrong.
She turned back to the body. He looked almost peaceful now, that look of Zen-like meditation she'd always gone for when preparing bodies for their funeral. An expression of tranquility that could naturally be held only by the most serene of minds. A man not merely asleep, but in complete harmony with mankind, acceptance of fate and mortality, and in total surrender and oneness with the universe. The only problem was his jaw was still hanging open, so he looked like he could start snoring any minute. As she went to pick up her bottle of adhesive, she noticed that his fingers were beginning to move up and down. Another post-mortem twitch. Hardly even worth thinking about except it amused her. Almost looked he was drumming his fingers on the gurney. "Alright, alright. I'm going as fast as I can. Jeez!" Suddenly his eyelids flew open.
Huffing in frustration, she pressed a pair of eye caps down hard into place and yanked his eyelids down, shoving them hard into place with her thumb and forefinger as she reapplied the adhesive. God, I hate when I bring my problems into work, she thought. She looked down at the face. "Sorry", she mumbled. "I didn't mean it".