Tayte trod across the corridor of the Enberg Funeral Home, hands held together in front of her black dress with a bow brooch, being as silent as possible out of respect for the living and the dead.
Her bedroom was just above, a single floor separating a domain of those breathing from those who have departed from this world. To the residents of Sugarmaple it was a place they hoped they would never have to set foot in, to her family, it was home sweet home.
And to Tayte it was… a place she slept in.
But she couldn’t complain, it was in fact, what she chose. It’s what she had to do.
Her walk down the corridor seemed to go on forever; the joyless walls on either side stretched. A bland, white door awaited for her on the right side — a way out of her endless day; even though she knew it would just lead her to another chamber of her colorless castle, she hoped for a prince to save her in the form of an event of any kind — something akin to a meteorite crash.
She entered the lobby and let out a yip.
A pair of glassy dark brown eyes went in her direction. She spun around and started scheming her escape plan in her head.
“Is this the part where you tell me he’s in a better place now?” the young man behind her said, in a slightly mocking tone.
Tayte heaved heavily and knew that it was inevitable as a mortician apprentice to avoid speaking to family members of the deceased. Her mother’s silvery voice panged in her head. She turned back to the ebony young man, an old high school classmate, clad in a slim tie and suit, he was seated in one of those hideous couches styled with a floral print that looked like fecal stains.
Tayte was transfixed on the young man and decided that it was time to make her debut. This first sentence would determine the rest of her career.
“No. Because he isn’t,” she said.
His expression crinkled and darkened.
“No, I mean!” Tayte waved both hands in a panic and approached him as she continued. “I mean, that he isn’t in a better place nor a worse place because he’s nowhere. He no longer exists. He doesn’t exist in any plane of existence. He isn’t happy or in pain. He feels nothing because he is nothing now. So, there is no need to worry about something that has become nothing, right?” She flashed her best attempt at a humane smile.
The young man, Chris Nangobi, gawked back at her and then looked down at his hands. He cocked a smile to Tayte’s disbelief.
“You know, if I actually knew that is what happens after death, I would be happy, but I don’t know and there is no way to confirm.”
“Nothing happens after death…” Tayte took a seat next to him on the stained couch. “My dad said that, ‘Dying is like when you turn your computer off and it never turns back on again.’”
Chris gave her a look, focusing on her sleepy dark gray eyes. “Well, that’s one way to put it…” he muttered.
“That was actually the day I first learned about death. It was right after this puppy that we had suddenly died from an illness.”
“And he decided at that moment to teach you about death to comfort you?”
“He elaborated,” Tayte paused to channel her father’s monotone demeanor, “‘The truth is, life ends, nobody lives forever, and it’s all part of a natural process that is fundamental to human life. I’ll die someday, your mother will die someday, everyone you know will die someday, and you’ll die someday, separately, perhaps with the deaths spread across time or maybe all at once, or maybe you’ll die when I teach you how to ride a bike a week from now.’”
She nailed it.
Chris’ mouth fell open as if he were watching a documentary on mistreated orphans.
“And then he took me out for ice cream. That was a good day.”
A tall gaunt man emerged in the lobby alongside a cortege of dark-skinned mourners. Chris focused on his fellow forlorn Nangobis and continued as the sounds of soft wails and sniffles filled in the background. “I can only imagine what your dad told you when you cried about monsters under your bed.”
“Oh, he told me that there’s no need to worry about monsters hiding under my bed,” she said. “They’re already around us. They’re called ‘people’.”
Chris stole a glance at the funeral director, Nicholas Enberg, speaking with his sobbing mother. “And that’s the guy in charge of consoling…”
“And as soon as I finish my apprenticeship, it’ll be my job, too,” Tayte said lifelessly, earning her a look from Chris.
“Gee, you sound really excited about it,” he said.
Tayte kept herself from looking back at him, constraining her fervent urges from saying something she’d regret. Of course, she had plenty of practice tethering her innermost feelings. “Although, he said I have a long way to go before becoming a funeral director,” she continued, ignoring his response, effectively. “He says that I don’t convey genuine emotion properly.”
Chris pointed at Nicholas as he shot an incredulous look at Tayte. “That guy is criticizing you on how you convey your emotions?” He shook his head and contemplated at the white stone table near them — fixating on a bouquet of white mums stuffed in a patterned vase. “Eternal life in paradise? Infinite suffering in damnation? Reincarnation? Or just a void? There’s no way to know…” Chris made a fist and squeezed it as if he were trying to crush a diamond inside, a network of veins bulged out from his wrist and the back of his hand. “That’s why I have to win it.”
“Win what?”
“The Tombstone Trials,” Chris blurted.
“What are the ‘Tombstone Trials’?”
His eyes snapped and then he did a double-take. The wails in the background elevated as Chris went silent and then asked on a low level, “Did I say that out loud?”
Tayte nodded slowly.
Pure terror took over his face. “Forget what I said.”
“Is that some kind of sports competition?”
“God, no!” His mourning family members sniped a look at Chris, he lowered his head until they looked away and then he resumed panicking. Chris turned his head to every direction, like a pigeon surveying for food on the asphalt, as he stammered. “Listen, uhm, it’s an… it’s an… Ugandan holiday… thing.”
Tayte took out her cellphone.
“What’re you doing?”
Tayte tapped on the cell’s screen. “Looking it up. It sounds interesting, and I want to learn more about it.”
“You won’t find it!”
Tayte stopped and arched her brow. “So, you know something that you can’t find on the internet?”
“Africans didn’t always write stuff down, you know. So not everything got digitized.” Chris thought for a moment. “Yeah, that actually makes sense…” he whispered under his breath.
“But—”
Bang. Chris hit the white stone table with his foot after springing up so quickly. The vase wobbled and he caught it, keeping it still as he contained his urge to scream, but at the cost of having his face frozen in a twisted expression that told you everything you need to know about how he’s feeling. “I should really get back to my mother; she did lose her brother after all.”
Tayte watched Chris limp over to her father and his mother while he managed to almost knock over a floor lamp and a flagpole along the way.
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His mother’s woeful face was replaced with one of disappointment.
###
The Enbergs provided another successful service. When nightfall came around, Tayte stood alone in the small chapel, with dim floor lights and just a few candles of the wrought iron chandelier doing their best to push the darkness of the silent night away. Her hands settled on the cold wooden base of the pulpit, holding an even colder sheet of paper between them, practicing her eulogy delivery.
Nicholas, in his striped cotton pajamas, found her and reprimanded her for her flat voice in his flat voice, but he was elated by her effort to improve. His haggard face glowed under the weak lighting for an instant. He was smiling—just a few more times and Tayte would be able to count them all on more than just one hand.
He requested that Tayte help him look for his wedding ring. He was convinced it was somewhere in the display room since it was the last thing he did before going to bed. Tayte followed Nicholas through the pitch-black corridor easily, with a flashlight from her father’s cellphone leading the way.
The wooden floor sang soft creaks under their bare feet while Tayte fixed on Nicholas’ fluffy steel gray hair bouncing up and down as he walked. The hair color mirrored her own. A genetic present gift-wrapped by the Enberg family lineage that was opened on its own when she turned 12.
Graying in the sixth grade was tough, at least the Enberg’s tremendously bad aging skin didn’t kick in then, and it hasn’t till now, but it WAS just a matter of time before she becomes a 23-year-old who looks like a divorced woman going through a midlife crisis.
The bad genes weren’t just on the outside. Enbergs don’t live life slowly approaching Death’s door. It’s a sprint towards it for them. With any mirror serving as a mnemonic of their fleeting mortality; it’s only natural they inserted themselves into the death industry.
The chill of the night finally broke through the fabric of her pajamas. She let out a shudder and wrapped her arms around her shoulders as Nicholas turned to a door on his left, she followed him into an even darker room without hesitation.
Nicholas flicked the switch and light blessed the display room, which exhibited a collection of caskets and coffins neatly tucked away into compartments. From veneered wood to stainless steel; an array of colorful options were available that were either generous or distasteful. A pleasant fragrance of lilies and carnations greeted them. The scented candles her parents set up did a good job at filtering out the astringent fumes coming from the neighboring embalming room.
Nicholas paced around the room, mumbling to himself. He walked up to a gothic glass cabinet and analyzed it through his murmurs. Tayte caught up to him and studied the elaborate urns on display. They’ve had their fair share of customers who were adamant about getting as much of the unique cremation jewelry they could afford. Some people just can’t handle not having a loved one by their side at all times. Tayte wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Nicholas bellowed and rubbed his wrinkled forehead. “Now, I think it may be in the garage.” He tapped Tayte on the shoulder. “See if you can find anything here.” Nicholas headed off.
Tayte stood in the silence surrounded by boxes of death. She shivered once more, wondering if she may need to update her cotton-based sleepwear for winter nights.
Suddenly, Tayte froze. There was something odd in the second row of the cabinet: An empty hook between a lotus flower and a tree of life urn necklace. Tayte knew that there was deathly jewelry of some kind in the vacant space but couldn’t remember which. She fished her brain for answers.
There was a rumble, and not too far from her.
Tayte scanned the room, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Her eyes landed on a black coffin propped on a pair of antique brass stands in the center of the room.
The rumble came again, and the coffin shook.
Tayte eyed it indifferently, and against most people’s better judgment, she approached it. Her expression stayed wooden as she examined the final resting place for a certain person in the future.
Which is then buried six feet under where the abandoned corpse rots inside never to be exposed to daylight again. It’s interesting how humans are born out of darkness just to only end up where they started Tayte thought to herself.
The coffin shook once more, and this time she could hear what sounded like banging coming from the inside. Her unwavering gaze remained glued onto it until it showed a more violent movement. The stands underneath buckled.
Tayte took a couple of steps back. Moving with ease and calm.
The sound refused to settle and became continuous: Bang, bang, bang.
Something inside was trying to break free. The corner of Tayte’s lip twitched a little and her fingers waggled and curled with excitement. She searched her surroundings, with a different purpose this time, and swept through the entire area without moving a muscle. Her mind cleared and was preparing itself for… the unexpected.
The lid popped open, the stands gave out, and the coffin fell over. Tayte leaped back as a figure ragdolled out of it and fumbled its way to its feet.
Tayte’s inner fight-or-flight had been triggered, and she had already chosen an answer.
She finally moved, but only managed to by an inch as something forced her to be still. A shiny silver pistol was aimed right between her eyes.
Tayte pulled her dilated pupils from the handgun and onto the intruder.
The intruder had an average male frame and was clad in jet black leather. He wore a tribal mask — African. It was terrifying to look at. It was like a drawing with uneven proportions made by a child having the final product be something straight out of an eldritch horror. She held the hollow stare of the mask’s long ivory face that had an open mouth shifting to the lower right end and one eye much bigger than the other.
The man clicked the hammer as a warning. She found herself no longer focusing on the disproportionate mask but at the darkened center of a gun barrel.
“Don’t move,” the man ordered in a low, gruff voice and with confidence as if he didn’t tumble like a jackass just a few moments earlier. He cocked the hammer again to show off. “If you move an inch, I’ll shoot. Do you understand?”
There was creaking coming from behind her. Tayte turned her head back.
“Hey!” the man screamed lowly.
Tayte looked back at him, unfazed.
The man kept his badgering on a low level. “What did I just say? You move, you die!”
Tayte followed suit and kept her voice low as well. “I thought I heard my father walking back—”
“Listen, if you want to survive till the next day, then you’re going to do exactly what I say, understand? If you do anything without my permission I’ll—”
Tayte turned back again and this time yelled, “It’s not in the garage, huh?”
“No!” Nicholas yelled from afar. “I’m going to the music room!” More creaking rose and then lowered as it went further and further away.
“You messing with me?” the man asked, fuming behind his mask. “And how come your hands aren’t up?”
“Oh.” Tayte raised her hands and stared back with a guileless face. “Sorry.”
“Aren’t you afraid to die?”
“Are you?” Tayte responded nonchalantly.
The man froze for a moment. The grip on his gun became shaky. “Of course, I am,” he said in a quick breath. “Everybody is.”
Tayte blinked twice as her expression turned vacant. She remained focused on his gloved hand and noticed he hadn’t even curled a finger around the trigger. The sound of his rapid breathing was the noisiest thing in the room.
“You can’t let the fear of death take over your life,” Tayte said.
A tiny hidden door on the wall behind the baffled man opened silently. Nicholas was in a crouched stance creeping up to the intruder. He wielded a shovel. When he daringly raised it overhead—
“Look out!” Tayte shouted.
The man spun back, flailing his hand wildly, managing to connect the base of the gun with Nicholas’ jaw. Nicholas staggered back and then leaped for the gun. The man raised the weapon but Nicholas caught his wrist.
Tayte watched the two wrestle. Trembling crawled up from her legs to her shoulders and then spread to her hands, in a pumped-up, twitchy kind of way.
It was happening again…
Tayte swore under her breath as she tried to wind down her excitement. She needed to convince her body that this wasn’t a good thing.
She put her hand over her painfully pounding chest, feeling her excited heart in the palm of her hand. Despite her best efforts, it seemed her body wasn’t keen on listening to her. Her afflicting cravings were taking full control.
Damn it, Tayte… not now, she thought, negotiating with her troublesome inner self.
Nicholas took an upward knee to the gut and let out a groan. The man finished him off with a shoulder bash. He turned back to Tayte as soon as Nicholas crashed down, pointed the gun, and moved up to her.
Tayte covered her mouth as she felt a grin forming on her lips, making a fist with her other hand and hitting herself on the leg.
As the man kept moving, he tilted his head to the side and asked, “What are you doing—?”
He tripped over the coffin and slammed face first into the floor. The gun slipped from his grip, slid across the floor, and stopped by her feet.
The man raised his head. “Shit!”
As soon as he got back up, Tayte picked up the gun quickly, holding it with both hands, and aimed it back at the man.
The man acted fast and ran back to a hurt Nicholas. He pulled him up and used him as a shield. “Put the gun down, Enberg,” he said.
“Tayte…” Nicholas said, exhausted.
Tayte could hear the vibrations coming from her heart in her ear and feel her body temperature rising. She let out shallow breaths as the blood inside her swirled and coaxed to her muscles.
Her grip on the firearm tightened, and her finger looped around the outer line of the trigger, then she saw the twisted look of pain on Nicholas’ face.
A look that she hated and was all too familiar with, sending a painful jolt through her and she dropped the gun and stepped away from it as if it suddenly turned into hot coal. The man spared no time and dashed toward his firearm, he picked it up and fled.
Tayte ran to Nicholas’ aid. She put her arms around him and helped him stand. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Nicholas gave her a look. “Why would you yell, ‘look out’?”
Tayte didn’t have an answer. Her body heat cooled down, her heart rate returned to normal, her tremors subsided, she turned around as she was still doing her best to fight back a grin that refused to go away.
After years in the colorless castle, her savior has come and gone in an instant, leaving her hungry for more. The shackles that she tended to throughout all this time were beginning to rust, and convincing it to go back into the colorless castle may be harder than before.
If she manages to at all…