by: KT Thacker

A Night in the Morgue with Joe

You can kill a person with a spoon if you try hard enough. Hell, there are a lotta ways you can off somebody. Knife in the back, cyanide in their beer, strangled with a shoelace, throw a toaster in the bath with them, there are so many ways my mind goes all tizzy. But guns? Nah. Where's the originality? That's not a interesting way to die at all. Anyone can kill someone with a gun, but a spoon... Yeah, you need STYLE to pull off a spooning.

See, I take pictures of dead people. No, it ain't in a serial killer - Jeffrey Dohmar - feed my neighbors human skin spaghetti- sorta way; I'm in forensics. When someone offs themselves or gets offed, I come with my cameras and snap some terribly unflattering photos. It clinched my gut the first couple of months; made my insides all dance the tango with rubber boots.

I dunno when I got used to it. Somewhere between the blond chic and her Drano cocktail and the old man whose brains had splattered on the side of his barn to form the face of Jesus; it all became relative. I'm above it now. I've reached the top of the hill that is Zen and built a Wal-mart on its sacred ground.

Heh, oh well, it's a living. What else are you supposed to do with a photography degree? Make art? Ha!

My photos are all over my desk now. I file things in the basement at night. Why they keep the filing system in the basement next to the morgue is beyond me. But it's no fun filing next to dead-ville, so I always roll my crap-tastic desk across the hall and sit in the actual morgue. Working there really gets my blood pumping. You never feel more alive then when you're hanging out with dead people.

I've got loads of suicide reports tonight. I've heard it said once that suicide is painless; but it sure as hell ain't for me. Seriously. If you're thinking of taking the ultimate Nestle Tea plunge, don't. Suicides make me fill out so many damn forms. How did he do it? With what kind of gun? At what angle? At what time? Where? Was Colonel Mustard and a candle stick involved in any way?

The morgue at night is amazing. The air conditioner beats a steady rhythm, something hums in the walls, when my chair creaks it sounds like the world itself needs to be oiled. The smells down here form some kind of hellish potpourri of embalming fluid and glazed donuts. Water drips down the sides of the teal tile walls. The air is thick like a milkshake you just can't suck up with a straw. You know, all cold and syrupy and makes your face contort in funny ways when you try to drink it in.

The dead people cabinets, as I like to call them, line the wall behind me, organized by alphabetical order. Ha! The irony just tickles my spine. People get filed away too when they die. The power's better than a shot of whisky. Here, I am god.

I leaned back in my chair, picked up another donut and stuffed it into my mouth. My belt cut into my stomach where the donuts from the previous nights just couldn't bare to leave me. I sat my black boots on the desk, idly clicking the heels together.

There's no place like the morgue. There's no place like the morgue.

Dorothy, Dorothy. Ole Joe coulda shown you a thing or two.

Lightening struck outside, illuminating the rectangle window at the top of the room. I suddenly had the urge for a typewriter and smoking jacket. Ha! It was a dark and stormy night in the county morgue and in walks a hot babe. Cue porno music.

I coulda had a day job upstairs, been all spiffy; worn a red tie and suit everyday. But then up there in the light you always have someone hovering over you, filling in the gaps of your personal space. But down here? My chin stubble and dress shirt with the large teriyaki stain on the front reign supreme. I can scratch my butt and no one cares.

There's a great freedom in that you know, scratching your butt and no one caring.

People are overrated. They're so full of hopes, desires, and obligations that they force upon you. Get a better job Joe. You're not the man I married Joe. Come visit daddy in the hospital Joe. Watch your father's terrified eyes as he's ripped away from this world Joe. Feh! When death comes for me I won't be his whimpering dog. I'll be his calm passenger. I'll pay the toll across the river Styx and leave him a little extra to buy himself something nice.

The Living? Who needs um? I think I'll stick with spending time with my friends the Does... Jane and John.

I reached over and pulled out my tan lunch pack from the bottom of the desk. I pulled a yogurt out of my bag and just gazed at that thing of , cherry yogurt. Mmm... An itty-bitty plastic spoon was stickied to the side. It was smaller than my pinky! It even had its own little slot to put the spoon when your not using it. Genius!

Cherry yogurt. True ambrosia, food of the gods.

The phone began to ring.

Bring! Bring! The thing kept bleating at me, taunting me as I had my hand ready to rip the yogurt package off and consume the sweet sweet yogurt goodness. Feh, it could only be one person that would bother me and my yogurt while we were in the throes of culinary passion.

My ex-wife Nancy.

What the heck, I'm bored. It might be fun to stir her brains around for a spell. I picked up the phone. "Moshi Moshi?"

"Joe?" the harpy's voice on the line asked in this annoying screechy way. I can just imagine her sitting in her god forsaken bathrobe, her hairy legs sticking out of the edge of the pink fluff, and her grinding her teeth together like some cow put out to pasture.

"You want take out?" My bad Japanese take out guy accent was off. Man, I need to get my priorities straight. I'm letting my important skills go rusty.

"Where did you put it?!"

"Nani? We have sushi special on Fridays! You want extra extra large combo for extra extra large body, yes?" I grinned.

"Where did you put the house deed?!"

Ah. So this was about thaaaaaat. Heh heh. I knew the law. Technically, it was still inside the house. Sure it was a bit hard to get to after I dismantled the fire place, stuck it in a combination safe, then boarded up the safe inside the wall, but nothing in the fine print said I had to make it easy-peesy.

Actually it could of, but it probably never occurred to She-zilla to check.

"It's in the house, but you'll never find it." I dropped the bad accent.

The screechy ear bleeding voice on the other end of the line started to chirp about lawyers so I hit the mute button for awhile. After about thirty seconds I figured she was done.

"Oh? Have nothing to say eh? Well you never did after ten years of marriage, I don't see why you'd start now. You cared more about those damn paintings than you ever did me."

Ha! My paintings never cheated on me with Manny the pool boy. Manny the big eared nine fingered pool boy. Kid was desperate I guess.

Painting... Art... I hate it all. Art's just a false dream. A man could work years on his technique, perfecting every brush stroke, every balance of light and darkness. Then some punk ass kid comes by, glues a bunch of garbage together, and the art community coos at it.

"Yes yes, you are sooo jaded and broken. Poor little victim. Get Manny to help you find the deed. I recall you thinking he's good with his hands. Are you going to keep bitching for long? I got a cup of cherry yogurt just singing my name here."

"Don't bring up ancient history! Just answer the question!"

"What's wrong sweetheart? Hate that you gotta depend on ole Joe?"

"I don't need you!" She was getting kinda shrill on me now, reaching decimals my human ear could not pick up. I might need to fish out my dog whistle. "I'll find the deed myself!"

"You don't need me? Then why are you calling me at 2 a.m. in the morning? Is it because you have no friends, no life; no future?"

There was silence on the line. I had struck a nerve in her withered heart.

"That's you Joe and you know it. All you are is a dead man, with a goddamned cup of cherry yogurt."

She hang up.

Feh! Hell raising harpy! I shook my shoulder's, trying to brush off that stiff feeling in my muscles I get every time I talk to her. She's poison; stomach curdling poison.

I jabbed the little spoon into the yogurt and pulled out a big chunk of red and began to practically inhale the stuff. Mmm cherry yogurt, my one and only love. Finally, I have come back to you.

"HA! Erk--"

Oh my god... The spoon went down my throat!

Whatta I do?! Whatta I do? I can't breathe! Oh my god! Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god!

I clutched my neck desperately. The plastic spoon was pushing against the side of my throat. I couldn't get any air.

Damnity damn damn damn! There was no one here to help me! I began to pound on my throat, trying to dislodge the spoon. I tried sticking my hand down my throat, but my fingertips couldn't reach. Oh! The phone!

My saliva coated fingers pushed 911 as my lungs began to burn.

"Hello, 911." The woman's voice on the other line paused. "Hello? What the... county morgue?! Funny Joe! Rrreal funny! I warned you about this last time!"

God, why can't I make any sounds! Slamming the receiver down on my desk ain't working! Who knew being an asshole to everyone would come back to haunt me?!

My vision was swimming; graying along the edges. My lungs felt like I was inhaling tobacco sauce. I stood and pounded myself against the sweaty gray wall tiles. Nothing was working. God, there's no good way to die is there?

"I'll have your job for this!"

Wait! Stop, someone help--

The phone clicked. The voice was gone.

My knees gave out and I slid down to the cold floor. A fluorescent light above me flickered on and off.

Images flashed through my mind. Pictures of suffocation victims. Popped blood vessels. My father's wild eyes darting about, my ex-wife Nancy tossing garbage bags of my art out the window, a little girl so mangled her mother couldn't identify the remains, Dorothy pulling the curtain away only to find there's nothing there... Nothing.

And then there I was, looking down at my dead body doing the whole ghostly specter thing. A line of drool ran down my body's mouth, dripping onto the floor. My eyes, no longer MY EYES rolled up to the ceiling.

I had died... by spooning.

The world was fading to black like a low budget movie and then suddenly the grim reaper was next to me demanding a three fifty toll and all I had was a buck twenty five.

The box of glaze donuts was on top of my back. I had fallen with my legs splayed underneath me so that I looked twenty pounds heavier.

My picture was going to look like shit.

Heh, what can I say? I had STYLE...

The End?

Note: I wrote this for a college creative writing class. It's rather pointless and doesn't go anywhere, but I suppose that's what happens when you write a short story on the fly a few hours before it's due. Still, I think it's mildy amusing so I thought I would put it up. I'm open to any suggestions on where to take the plot (I suspect it would involve NOT killing Joe, heh heh). I'm at a loss.

Contact info again ('cause I just know you're itching to send me spam): ashez2ashes at yahoo dot com

Website: (it's mostly anime fanfiction, but if that floats your boat check it out) http semi colon, backslash, backslash, www dot geocities backslash ashez2ashes dot com