A Place to Rest

SOME PEOPLE FORGET ABOUT DYING AT THE HOUSE ON PINE STREET. Unadorned and unmarked, the white clapboard house delineated the final reaches of suburbia. Surrounded by identical structures, this building was the only one on which life had bothered to impose itself, pulling a chair. Once people found out what was going on there, they moved away quickly and in numbers. It was a place that captured the neat and documented end of many lives. Depending on how you view this sort of thing, no murder or true violence was ever committed on the grounds of the property. One might point to the intricate system of freezers preserving the recently deceased as evidence to the contrary. But it is clear to any observer who takes the time that this house is a place of rest, a place of transition and free from fear: a postmortem spa, if you will. Or, as the more serious workers will flatly state, a death-provisioning and planning facility. Anyone who looks at our records will see that the dead were well consulted in the process that made them so. We even offer some insight into insurance loopholes that lighten the burden on the family of the deceased. Yet, to be clear, this is a limited-time offer; the legislation in this field is subject to rapid change.

Taking the lead from the official government policy, the private company that has undertaken the operation has made it clear that they would much rather be out of business. But so, life goes, and they continue to offer dignified deaths for those who think it would be the appropriate course of action. Although, they did get rid of the referral program, as that didn’t sit well with certain members of the public.

At first, their services drew in a very specific type. They would walk into the waiting room like it was any other, checking their watches as if eager to make it to the next appointment on time. In many ways, it might be helpful to describe these individuals as “on the clock,” in a vaguely existential sort of way. Trapped in a circle that contained all the imaginable world, they felt gears grind their nervous system into a state of submission. They could never stop, never question their relation to the universe surrounding them. At best, they became aware of what was missing from the bedroom of their soul. Competent and inoffensive, time provided both disease and antidote for the well-meaning but irrevocably alone. They wanted to do good but didn’t know how. All they knew is that doing good doesn’t mean being good. The strength to infuse the critical hours of life with the necessary sacrifice evaded them: pushing their life into prose. “If the currency of life can purchase no good, may it not be exchanged for a quiet departure from the weight of responsibility?” My God, we need to cut down the length of these submissions.

You see, we have been having a bit of a retention issue with our customers recently. Surveys found that some individuals didn’t feel properly represented by the pre-composed options under “Reason for death planning.” With the customer in mind, the communications team invited some local college students to submit reasons for taking one’s life. They invited lyricism and pathos, emphasizing that the students were helping shine light before a final darkness. Flooded with responses—we like to believe we have a solid community presence—from some truly promising minds, our customer engagement and walk-in numbers skyrocketed.

To give you a sense of the process, after a client completes the necessary paperwork, they are guided to their childhood bedroom. Often, the bedroom contains only a few similarities to the one they lived in, but we believe one’s memories can fill in the gaps. Once they are in the room, we ask them to remove all articles of clothing and lay down on the provided bed. For the sake of authenticity, the beds are often rather small, and the customers’ feet have a habit of dangling. Turning off the lights, our specialists proceed to ask them a series of questions.

“When did your problem begin?”

That’s how they begin the session, each one without fail. People’s lives are kept and recorded on a sequence of thin black tape: marriages, deaths, and existential bafflement filming the shining surface. Some people find these conversations clarifying. The fateful strings of their life form a tapestry of varying quality. With life finding a shape, even if only temporary, several customers wonder if our services would no longer be necessary. Lightly stroking the crumb-filled sheets of childhood (we like to provide snacks), they would feel the weight of the unlived return. They sit with a content stillness, satiated in their self-expression, waiting for parents that would never come.

“Do you have a hard time looking forward to things?”

These questions are not meant to clarify. They are meant to record, that’s all. Simple outlines at the end of the road. An ending for an inauspicious beginning. But being recorded will do a lot for certain people. To be worth recording is a feeling that’s saved and cursed many lives. On one hand, there’s the terrible guilt; guilt about the disappointed audience watching one’s life unfold, seeing into us and through us and finding our souls thoroughly void of entertainment. What happens when they switch the channel? Will they come back? What happens in the tangled sheets after weeks alone, grabbing at the bedding for a semblance of a body next to us?

Well, really this is all beside the point. These questions blossom a series of others—petals falling on the brain, short-circuiting the already faulty wiring. We are in the business of cut flowers, ones that are in communion with ash or bone, depending on the package purchased by the customer. To close these roads, ones that lead to doubt or compromise, we’ve continued to revise our questioning process. One of the most helpful suggestions advised that we cap the customer cumulative response to one hundred words. Does a life really need more? Spending time tracing the liminal spaces of life is hardly a service to anyone.

Strangely, we’ve noticed that this change in questioning has led to no change in interview duration. People outline their words, balancing the sharp calligraphy on their tongues, feeling the wounds expand with each sentence. Their glances were searching: were they meant to answer these questions alone? Who would catch them in their lies, catch them in the throes of myth-making? Sometimes you can’t help but lie, the truth being an object in motion. Some think it’s still right to shoot, to feel the gun grow hot. Nobody would tell them when they finally hit the target, leaving the truth to bleed out in an unseen room.

Usually, about half-way through the interview, knowing their time was sparse, people would attempt to penetrate the blue-black of the room, looking for something to hold onto.

“You know I had a brother…”

56 wds

“His bed should be in that corner…”

63 wds

“The room would never have been this dark. It annoyed mom at first, but we used to wrap gauze from the bathroom around the lamp. Barely any light came through, but it was okay… Never this dark.”

100 wds

“Can I smoke?”

“We have to attend to the next customer. There is a suggestion box outside the operating room where we would be delighted to receive your suggestions.”

Strangely enough, depending on how you see it, many people did take the time to write something on one of the suggestion cards. Sometimes it would just be a meek succession of words; sometimes it would be the time-honored statement of “I am here” written in iterations of lowercase, uppercase, bombastic punctuation, but occasionally with just a tasteful emptiness on the page. Other customers wrote letters that will never be read by anyone other than you.

“Dear dad,

Have had a rough go of it. I hope you are doing alright. Not great but alright. You definitely don’t deserve great. I guess I’m alright, so maybe things will be alright. But I’m unsure. Alright then, best to mom, or maybe just good.

Your son. {REDACTED}”

Sometimes they would leave poems,

“I hope on the other side
Not nothing but no pain
I tried believing every
Love was worth the pain necessary to reach it.
I was never one for long journeys,
I’ll spend my last minute
Thinking of you
As I wish I could have
Always remembered you,
Helping me to sleep.”

But this is rather sentimental stuff, and not entirely helpful for your training. Beyond the suggestion box, there is the operation room itself. Dimly lit, the walls are decorated with pictures of exotic birds, great flashes of color. We like to keep magazines by the table as the set-up can sometimes take a while. Most of the articles are relatively topical, as we try to keep it light during the final moments. Despite the mundane, poorly written chronicles before them, some people try to delay the procedure in order to finish an article. Tapping their feet, doctors will look on as the customer use their free hand to swipe away the needle. Discourse concerning the astrological implications of the Academy Award season had made death a less pressing possibility. We try to be lenient, but at times we must interrupt to proceed with the injection.

You get used to it. Sometimes, I like to look at the page they were open to. What happens to words in a dying mind? Are they carried over or do they linger? And if they do stay, can they only live as parasites bringing unwelcome thoughts to those of us left behind? These thoughts are usually passing and soon they never come at all. Once the customer is not strictly biological, we offer several means of disposal, but you don’t worry about that. Disposal falls under the responsibility of a whole other team.

“What happens if they want to leave?” you ask.

Well, although not ideal­–we believe the customer is more qualified than the citizen to stay–there are those who forget about us, about our services, the true value that we offer, our research suggests that a significant share of those in our target market can never completely quiet the whispers. And why should they? The haunting words are a rope hanging from the ceiling of human tradition. In fact, our customers can take comfort in the literary encapsulations of their dilemma.

“So many times a man’s thoughts will waver,
That it turns him back from honored paths,
As false sight turns a beast, when he is afraid.”

The emptiness becomes hunger and the unfortunate realize that it is their fate to starve. Here, and only here we can provide that final meal. There’s no need to go to bed on an empty stomach.