Kylie Barch was watching yet another funeral from afar, waiting for the services to end so she could do her job, which consisted primarily of dumping dirt onto a large box. Not much of a job, but then again she wasn't much of a person, or at least that's how she saw herself. Kylie had, in her brief 24 years on this planet, done all she could to further remove herself from society, including getting this job instead of staying in college. She could hear soft sniffles, little whimpers and cries, and she rolled her eyes as she leaned against her shovel. Why are you upset? The living are the upsetting part. The living can hurt you, can bother you, can destroy you in a myriad of ways. Not the dead.
The dead can't disappoint you.
She looked at her short, mauve colored nails and exhaled, her breath catching in the cool air in front of her. It was getting to be fall again, and she was at least looking forward to that. She didn't look forward to much. But the brisk air, the orange and brown leaves, the Halloween decorations...it all brought Kylie back to a moment in her past that she actually enjoyed, which was how every October from the ages of 7 to 14 she would finally not feel like a weirdo compared to everyone else. And that helped, because as an adult, she certainly felt like an outcast, primarily due to her job. Her job, something she'd chosen specifically as a way to not involve herself with the world, did come with its perks however. Nobody spoke to her. She could listen to music all day while she dug graves. But the best one was being invited to the funerals.
They'd take place within the confines of the cemetary, so she would be allowed to come in and have a snack from the little table and people watch. Not that she found much enjoyment in that. People were so boring. So very very boring. Somehow the living were more lifeless than the dead. But the best part of being able to attend these things was that, if the ceremony called for an open casket which they often did, she got to look at the deceased. Most of the time they weren't worth the glance; old, decrepit, or in some cases very sickly which was not appealing. But the ones she found drew her in were the women between the ages of 21 and 34, who were beautiful, and now were about to be buried. These women made up to be pretty even in their final moments on this earth (because, as she'd later tell someone, women cannot escape vanity even in death). Often dressed in beautiful gowns, their hair and makeup done to precision, these were the ones she liked looking at.
And she never did anything, for the record. She didn't touch anything, she wasn't an out and out creep, at least not publicly. But she would stand there, and admire them. Their ethereal beauty radiating from their no longer living tissue. And sometimes, if she really felt drawn to one, she would stay by the grave afterwards and talk to them. The headstones knew her secrets, her desires, and that was how she liked it.
At least until she met Victoria, and then that all changed.
Finally the priest said his final words, the mourners dispersed, and it was Kylie's time to shine. She trudged in, shovel over her shoulder, and looked down at the casket now lowered into the ground. She waited briefly, and then she got to filling it in. The depths of graves always interested her. How did we come to a decision of 6 feet, specifically, she wondered. For one thing, there was no standard consensus on this matter, and in fact all we are left with instead are multiple hypothesis. Some of these were as follows, as she had learned over time.
The first is that the depth ensures the grave digger's safety. Some people believe that the primary reason for excavating a grave to a depth of six feet is to protect the one doing the digging. They also feel that excavating a grave to this depth might make it simpler to access the body. A gravedigger of normal size could still throw dirt out with a shovel even if they were 6 feet tall, and, in addition to that, wouldn't need a ladder to go in or out.
Then there's the possibility that the depth is to protect the corpse from being stolen. Snatching dead bodies was common in many parts of England and Scotland in the early 1800s (she ignored this fact, considering she didn't live in those areas). Therefore, graves were always dug six feet deep to prevent body snatchers from gaining access to the buried remains. Another issue that people were worried about was animals digging up graves. An ancient practice of burying dead people six feet underground may have helped mask the odor of decay from predators. Similarly, random disturbances, such as plowing, would be unable to reach a person buried six feet underneath.
And finally, the prevention of the spread of disease. Unfortunately, the transmission of illness has not always been well understood. People in olden times may have thought that bodies carried sickness during epidemics. In contrast to the bubonic plague, cholera and TB do not spread to those who come into contact with human remains. While this isn't always the case, it might explain why so many people think caskets need to be buried at a depth of 6 feet or more.
Despite not managing to find a real reason, she also didn't really like any of these. Kylie much preferred to believe that it was just an arbitrarily decided on number of feet, and that became the gold standard for the remainder of time. That, to her, was far more entertaining an idea. Decisions, after all as she had learned, were rarely attached to any kind logic, and often even things that became of great importance throughout history were usually just chosen by some random guy. That felt much more realistic. After work she figured she would go home, back to her little dark apartment and lay in bed and daydream. While most people might daydream about their wedding or their career or their eventual family plans, Kylie didn't want any of that. Kylie, instead...
...would daydream about finally being able to kiss one of those beautiful deceased women.
And finally feel like someone understood her.
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Kylie didn't know exactly when she was first introduced to the idea of death, but she knew it was at a young age, and she was fairly confident - though she couldn't claim this was complete certainty - that it was her next door neighbor. An older woman, by the name of Estelle Grey, who was like a grandma next door, and for a little girl like Kylie, who didn't grow up with a grandmother for reasons her mother never wanted to get into, this was a nice substitute. Estelle would babysit often, and she felt safe with her. Then there was that evening. Kylie must've been, she figured, about 6 or 7, and she wandered into the living room after awaking from a particularly bad dream. She'd always suffered from night terrors, nightmares, and this one was very nasty. She was looking for comfort. What she found, instead, was decay.
There Estelle was, sitting just as she had been when Kylie had gone to bed earlier, on the couch. But something was different. Her eyes were open, but they weren't blinking. Her chest wasn't rising and falling. Physically she existed, but she also didn't exist, somehow. She was just...there. When Kylie's mother would finally return home that evening, she would have to explain to Kylie what death was, and it was something she didn't really manage to grasp even then. She wouldn't, until her uncle died right in front of her when she was about 11. He was replacing a lightbulb in their kitchen fixture, and he missed his footing on the stepdown from the chair, slipping instead on the linoleum floor, sliding back and slamming his head into the hard tile counter before collapsing in a heap to the floor. His dark blood from his head wound mixed colorfully with the black and white flooring in the kitchen, and Kylie, mortified at having witnessed this incident first hand, finally got it.
Death was something that would happen regardless of readiness. You had no say. And that moment put a stop on her entire life. She started to figure, why bother participating, doing anything, planning for some sort of future if you aren't guaranteed it? So she didn't. And that's where she was to this day, psychologically.
It was almost 4am, and she was still awake.
Her insomnia had become her most faithful companion. Loyal to an irritating fault. She sighed and stared up at the ceiling overhead in her apartment, at the fan going at medium speed, and shut her eyes. She tried to imagine the sensation. Her lips pressed against the cold but still pliable lips of another womans, her hands on her hips, knowing that no matter what happened, neither one would walk away from the encounter unsatisfied because, well, one of them was Kylie and the other was dead. The women changed appearance in her fantasies often; sometimes they'd have long chestnut brown hair, sometimes they'd have a blonde medium cut, sometimes they'd have green eyes and sometimes dark blue like a frozen lake. Sometimes they would be wearing a satin sort of nightgown, sometimes they would be dressed in a suit of all things. But the one constant that remained...was they were all dead.
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Kylie could feel herself getting heated at the prospect of kissing one of them. Lately she'd been fantasizing about a woman she'd seen about 5 months ago in an open casket ceremony. She'd had a nicely symmetrical face, pearl earrings and large front teeth that sat just barely over her bottom lip. She had long, thick eyelashes and her hair was jet black and curled. Kylie had felt an immediate intense attraction to her, despite her rather...unfortunate state of existence. Or, that was how others saw it anyway. To her, this state was preferred. Kylie's breathing sharpened, her eyes shut tighter, and she could almost, in her minds eyes, see herself kissing this poor woman on the neck and down to her collarbones. Kylie wasn't much for intimacy, and had only had sex a number of times in her life - none of them worth recalling - but these fantasies, these brought her a complete and total sense of satisfaction that often left her empty headed by the end.
After she finished, she sat upright in her bed and turned, legs off the side now, staring at the wall ahead of her. The worst part was the shame. She felt shame, and she hated it. Not even shame for her own sake, but shame for the sake of society, for knowing how they would treat her if they knew about the things she thought. She tried to ignore it, not internalize it, but it was difficult. After a few minutes, Kylie finally managed to stand up and head into the kitchenette of her apartment. She yanked open the fridge, pulled out a carton of apple juice and poured herself a tall glass. She then took it and headed out onto the balcony, overlooking the area. She could see the cemetery from here. She'd specifically taken this apartment because of its proximity to the locale. Kylie stood there in absolute silence, the cool October air slowly breezing through her hair and against her skin, and she sipped from her glass.
She hated being lonely, but she knew that she'd never felt lonelier than when she was with living people. This was why she no longer lived at home. This was why she had no friends. This was why she didn't attempt romantic endeavors.
But the things she wanted...she knew she could never have them. She felt herself begin to cry. What harm was there, she thought, in being with the dead. Oh sure, some would bemoan her desires, call them lurid and disrespectful to the memory of their loved ones. But they were dead. Why should they be lonely like her? Why couldn't they find pleasure in one anothers company? Kylie finished her glass and set in on the small balcony table beside her, then reached up and wiped the tears from her face. She sniffled a little, and then started to recompose herself. Feelings were for the living. She didn't consider herself part of that elite group. Therefore, it stood to reason that she didn't need to have feelings, and did her best to dissuade them from occuring. After a bit, Kylie finally turned back around, headed back inside, and finally managed to fall asleep.
She didn't have a nightmare that night.
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"I wish there was a state of being between dead and alive," Kylie said, "because that's where I'd feel most comfortable, and that's...that's where I actively try to exist. Between those two states of being. Because one feels too final, but the other feels too involved."
Kylie had been coming to this support group for a few months now. It was something she'd found off a flyer in her neighborhood when she was at the local laundromat, and it intrigued her. The group was for grief support, but Kylie didn't have any grief. She wasn't suffering from any kind of loss. So she simply made something up, and then used that as a launchpad to talk about her own feelings regarding existence. Thankfully nobody questioned it, but nobody really ever questions anything she realized, if you just cry enough.
"Grief is a weird beast," the group leader, a man named Kenneth, a little older than her with square framed glasses and shaggy blonde hair, said as he leaned in from his chair, "because it leaves us with this extreme range of emotions. Some want to die to join their loved ones, some want to live for their loved ones. Enjoy the things they can no longer enjoy. But you're valid too, Kylie, in the way that you feel."
Kylie knew she was valid. She didn't need to be validated. Her parking needed to be validated, not her emotions.
"A lot of times, grief can do exactly what you're describing," Kenneth continued, "it can cause you to want to just...coast through life without wanting to actually be involved. Life is messy and gross and often unpleasant. There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to pull away. But you have to realize that you can't do that forever. It's okay for a little while, but it can't be your eternity."
Kylie nodded, only half listening. She'd come up with some cockamamie story about a woman she'd been close to since middle school who'd been her best friend and had died tragically from an illness. Something that Kylie had to watch her wither away from. Something so personal that nobody would prod further with questions. Still, she hated how Kenneth spoke to her. How he seemed to think she needed to change. She didn't come here for advice. She came here to talk. But she knew that listening was part of the deal, and so she did her best to pretend.
"My aunt," another member, this time a teenage girl, started, "she ended her own life and that brought into existence all these questions about, like, am I going to want to do that? Is it genetic? So I receded from school and my friends and stuff. I know how you feel."
Do you? Do you really, now? Kylie wondered. If anyone actually knew how she felt, they'd disown her from the public. She'd be run out of town, chased with torches and pitchforks like the monster she was. No, Kylie thought. No you don't know how I feel, and you never will.
She had to work that evening, yet another grave to dig. The service wasn't until the morning, but the hole needed to be ready beforehand. After the group ended, Kylie went home, showered and threw a frozen dinner into the microwave. She ate quickly, then changed into her uniform and then headed to the cemetery. One of the perks of living so close to her place of work was being able to walk there. Shovel over her shoulder, her other hand stuffed in her jumpsuit pocket, she strolled along the sidewalk with the changing fall leaves overhead and the cool air nipping at her nose. She would take in long, deep breaths of fresh air and, for the first time in a while, feel alive again. Truly alive. And revel in it, even.
And that scared her.
Those moments where she almost felt normal, they scared her. Because was it really that easy to be normal? Was she really just that stubborn? That determined to be weird? She quickly wiped those thoughts away, and started thinking about who it was that might be buried this time. The last person lowered into a grave had been a man in his 60s, nothing remotely interesting of note about him. She was hoping, this time, for something more her speed. As she arrived, she was surprised to find that there was a hearse already parked outside the cemetery, and she slowed her brisk pace to a near crawl in order to investigate further. A woman - a tall woman, with bright blonde hair and one long braid down her back - was standing at the back of the hearse, and appeared to be pulling the casket out all by herself. She was wearing a cobalt blue blazer and slacks atop of a collared button down black shirt.
"Do you...need some help?" Kylie asked, surprising even herself as the words left her mouth, and the woman turned to face her, and smiled.
"That would be amazing, thank you," she replied, "I'm...I'm not much in the way of upper body strength, but you, considering what it is you're here to do..."
Kylie chuckled and nodded.
"Yeah, I got it," she said.
Together they managed to get the casket placed onto a dolly, and then Kylie wheeled it into the cemetery, following the womans lead. As they entered the small church where the service was to be held the following morning, Kylie had a nervous sensation about herself. She felt oddly uncomfortable in places of worship, especially when there wasn't a funeral going on. She stopped wheeling at the front of the main room and the woman, scratching the back of her head, laughed nervously.
"I don't...I can't really pay you for your services," the woman said, "I don't have cash on hand and-"
"Oh, I get a salary, I just consider this part of my job," Kylie said, shrugging.
"I have to have everything set up so that tomorrow morning everyone can just...you know...waltz on in and have a procession. This is the most stressful part of my job. I'm not...I'm not good with the family members. I'm able to take care of what they need to be done, but not...not this part. They're always so....emotional. Understandably so, but still."
This statement stabbed Kylie in the heart. This woman was speaking her language.
"Are you...are you just a...a funeral home director or?"
"I'm everything necessary all rolled into one," the woman said, holding her arms out and grinning, "yeah. I'm a mortician, I run the funeral parlor, I do it all. But I'm best at the embalming. That process is...it's like washing dishes. It's clinical. Sterile. Cold. Just repetition and patience. I can do it and, you know, maybe listen to an audiobook on the side. Just cause they're dead doesn't mean I can't be entertained."
Kylie laughed, genuinely laughed, and nodded in agreement. She then zipped her jumpsuit back up all the way and exhaled.
"I better get to digging," she said.
"What's your name?" the woman asked as she started to pass by.
"Kylie. Kylie Barch," Kylie said, turning and facing her.
"It's nice to meet someone who can understand my plight," the woman said, chuckling, "Thanks again for the help, Kylie. I'm Victoria. Victoria Beckham."
After shaking hands and going their separate ways, Kylie couldn't help but think about how she hadn't once tried to sneak a peek inside the casket while moving it and setting it up. How, instead, all her focus had been on Victoria. And that night, when faced once again with the inevitable need to relieve herself of tension and frustration and anxiety, Kylie found that, instead of thinking about her usual dark curly haired angel...she thought about Victoria.
And that was a nightmare in and of itself.