Silence.
Cedar Fields' Embalming and Preparation Rooms were filled with this weighty stillness. David was used to this, welcomed it, and was well-accustomed to the feeling. His Guest tonight was a young woman who's drinking addiction was her undoing. It was an accident, she popped herself out of the sunroof of a limousine at the worst possible moment imaginable.
The blunt force trauma, combined with her thin blood at the time, killed her instantly.
David moved about the room, arranging his images of the sons of Horus with his characteristic reverence. “I'm sorry,” he said to the dead woman lying on the slab, “that it came so suddenly.” Taking a moment, the Mortician put on his full-body gown reaching behind his head to tie it. “My name is David,” he introduces himself as he retrieves his hair net, “I'll be taking care of you tonight.”
The Shadow's movements are deft, having grown up around these rooms, this stillness, and death since he could walk. “It is a shame that you can't tell of the Green.” The last -- in David's mind -- mystery: what was a 'good death?' And was it truly lost for someone balanced between the gates of horn and ivory?
Gloved and with his clear face-mask on, he sets to preparing the embalming fluid: a bright pink lanolin-based liquid designed to restore some color to the Guest. David also began to sing. The Mortician's voice was a low warbling tenor, just above the sounds of the machines preparing the fluid, and in a language long, long dead.
<< Hail, O ye who make perfect souls to enter into the House of Osiris, make ye the well-instructed soul of the Osiris the scribe Ani, whose word is true, to enter in and to be with you in the House of Osiris. Let him hear even as ye hear; let him have sight even as ye have sight; let him stand up even as ye stand up; let him take his seat even as ye take your seats.” >>
Chrisie