literature

Isis Is

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Eduard had died.

I wished that I could do something, anything. We spoke in Uni only, oh, two to four times a week, but I had never known anyone to die before. Well, distant relatives, but not like this. In a day, he'd gone from being my friend to suddenly lying lifeless like every other thing.

I could do a million different things, I knew, but what I wanted the most was to just let him be alive, the way he was on Monday. Why was that so infinitely more difficult than anything else? I could go out and rob a bank or go to the moon, but I couldn't get him back. I couldn't stop thinking about him. I couldn't stop thinking about trying to get him back.

Like I hurried to the hospital that night. At every step the distance seemed the same or longer! I couldn't wait... I was trying not to run but my feet just weren't going fast enough. My mind was far from the traffic, until I registered the horn of a car that I'd just walked out in front of. The driver, a woman, only glared at me. I've got to be more careful, I thought. I can't let myself get stopped.

It was coming up to 4am, soon there would be a shift change in the hospital. A girl I knew worked at the hospital for a few months, I asked her all about it. Said I was thinking of becoming a technician or a porter, and she told me about the shifts, about the keys. But there wasn't any need - by the back wall there were a couple of workers smoking and just around the corner a fire escape stair, a door ajar. I softened my step and held my breath, I just wanted to run up those stairs but I scaled them quietly and the background traffic muted my ascension.

They say you need about 1500 kcalories a day to stay alive. No wonder then, that the dead stay dead - they don't get fed. I sneaked in with my ingredients; the two-litre bottle was in my backpack and inside was my plan. A litre of oil, a pound of sugar, some protein mix and various pills and caps of vitamins, minerals, everything I could possibly think of.

I was in the mortuary area. The hallway was empty, and only faintly lit except for a strong light coming from under one door, presumably where the workers were taking a break from. Nonetheless I looked in but no Eduard. Nobody. I tried the room next to it, turned on a set of lights. I didn't have time to look around as I heard the fire escape staircase creaking under the weight of two men, so I closed the door and stuffed a hung-up doctors' coat underneath to block out the light. Then, I wedged my foot up to the door in case they tried to get in.

Pressing up my ear to the icy door, I was listening to them approaching. I heard that they were talking about canopic jars and how much more "significant" they looked than a medical pan. They proceeded to the other room and their voices became indistinct behind the closed door.

I felt free to look around now. The human forms lying there unnerved me. There were four corpses, all on stainless gurneys and each one at a medical bench. No, no, yes there he was. Eduard's pale face paler, and his body in a polyester gown - two pieces of material kept together with little ties all around the sides. The strange smell of death stalled. Ohh... no no, the evidence, the proof. I had become so distracted by my nervousness of being caught that for a few moments I had completely forgotten what I had come to do. It was the shock of the fact, no longer just a second-hand account but absolute certainty, no chance of misunderstandings or lies. I felt dizzy, as if the floor had been taken out from underneath me.

But I realised how ridiculous this was. Hastily, I took off my bag, unzipped it and withdrew the bottle. It was hard to examine the texture in the liquid under the dim, flattening lights. In my bedroom, with the shine of a cloudless sky brightening my room I had seen the liquid layer itself. Not here though, the bottle reflected the lamps too much to see anything. I paused then, listening out again in case of any noises. But all I could hear was the hum of the air conditioner - and,  coming out in little clouds, my own restless breathing.  

Eduard died falling from a fire escape stairway. He went to his part time office job and a half hour later he was dead three storeys below. They had still taken him to the mortuary, rather than the undertaker, to see why he fell. Whether he was drugged, on drugs or drunk - they could tell that much. But nobody saw him falling, and no tests could analyse his brain to tell whether the move was willing or not. He had confided in me that there were some - personal things he was unhappy about. Who knows? I could not have imagined that he would fall willingly.

I lifted his head and propped up my bag underneath. Then, peeling apart his dry purple lips I poured the mixture down his throat - and waited.

After a couple of moments, the body sagged slightly, and then folded at the waist. The skin was warming up now, even through his hair I could feel the scalp resisting the cold. I just held his head in my hands now - it felt so hot compared to everything else in this room, I could feel a slight tremor in his skin, a gentle pulsing behind his cheekbones. He did not splutter awake, but assumed breathing by and by. I - held off the temptation to speak to him until I was sure he would respond. His eyelids detached apart just enough for me to see reflections changing in the new moistness. I climbed onto the gurney and lay beside him, my arm over him, my breathing on his cheek, I gripped him, impatiently, now, feeling over his temples. I sat up, kneeling over his legs. I pulled gently at his arms and he rose without resistance.

"Tom... I came back," he said to me.

He spoke softly and his eyes explored mine with intense concentration. But he slumped back, weak, and reached for my hand, again. "Take me away from here. I don't want to be here." I put my jacket on him and helped him down. He was intensely weak and cried out with each step he took. So I removed the jacket from him and put on a white coat on me and wheeled the gurney out into the corridor. An old hospital wheelchair served as a less conspicuous means of transport, and my original civilian clothing did not feel out of place. When we got out of the hospital, I took him to my room.

"Why did you die, Eduard?" I asked.

But my mind could not commit itself to an answer, even imaginary. This scenario played itself over in my head repeatedly, and it was a delight to allow myself to indulge in it. I thought too of the myth of Osiris and Isis, how Osiris' body was cut into 13 parts and how Isis went looking for the parts to piece him back together. If only it were so magical! I dream that Eduard was cut into 13 pieces, and that I would need to gather them from all over the world to bring him back.

I get a job as an air steward, I do what I can to make sure I get on the right flights. I fly to new countries and continents. I take leave, I search for him all day and I succeed. It is not flesh and blood, but stone and I bring it onboard as my luggage allowance. It would only have taken a few weeks, a couple of months at most. Now we are flying to the last destination - Cairo I presume. A terrible explosion, and something catches fire. We're spinning through the air downwards, the noise is deafening and the masks are bobbing above us. I untangle myself from my seatbelt and lunge towards the door, past the other crewmembers. The smoke becomes thicker, my eyes itch and sting but I have to get out. I am opening the emergency exit by wrenching the handle, the panel is swinging open and sucking me out. I am floating in mid-air watching the plane plunge down, and my heart is hurting only with helplessness because I can never get Eduard to become alive again.

I wake up, still feeling that tugging at my chest. For all my fantasising, Eduard is still there in the hospital, or at the undertakers'. So what is it, that would make me steal a body from the hospital, or go all the way around the world if I was certain it would bring him back to life? Why would I do this for a casual friend, an acquaintance? I suppose, secretly, I just wish someone would do it for me.
Just a story about death which, I hope, is neither excessively morbid nor too unrealistic.
© 2008 - 2024 Lady-Magenta
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Nitsaj's avatar
the detail in this was amazing. I followed it perfectly and as i read, i wanted more after each paragraph. Too morbid? no *shakes head* I think you did a fine job with balance of desrcibing the body as Tom gives Eduard the mixture. I ejoyed it . Thank you.