Indelible lives, (edited)

Bound in her uniform of science she surreptitiously turns over his
hand, palm up to face the ceiling. There is no resistance to her
movement, nor did she expect any, it is as cold and lifeless as the
countless others she has done this with before.

It began as a game she played to make them seem friendlier, the endless
dead passing through. Their faces telling so little of the lives they
must have lived, the pains they felt or the joys. But their hands,
that's different. A story book of lines and tell tale signs. As faces
relax in the exhaustion of death the creases fade and fall. A final
kindness from death and gravity, to erase the years and leave them
looking free and serene. But hands are unchanging, even the final act
can't wipe away the story written there. So she began to glance at
their palms; thinking of how her grandmother and mother before her had
looked so often in to the hands of family and friends during their
lifetimes. They were a family drawn to magic and when she became a
scientist they had agreed but that science is just magic explained. So
she looked to see if the lifelines of the old were longer, the young
shorter, the frail and enfeebled weaker. Then as time went by she began
to look more closely and finally now she looks before she draws back
the sheet. To see them in life before seeing them in death. She is
rarely surprised now by the rest of them. A palm full of pain can be
seen in the rest of the body, even after the gentle caress of the last
breath has eased away the tensions. There is something that lingers
after the soul is gone, like a scent almost, a residue of some life
force.

She thinks perhaps a part of them pauses to see that the body is cared
for, hard not to feel attached after so long in one vessel. It comforts
her as she turns and washes them, that she is calming the spirit,
taking care of them for the final time. And she wonders who will bathe
her when her time has come.

The lights are harsh and sterile, the smell so chemical and abrasive it
leaves her feeling like a thief, stealing a story from them in a place
that has no room for superstition or empathy. But still she turns each
palm like a gardener lifting leaves to check for spots or grubs. Is
this plant healthy? Was this life lived or merely passed through.

The palm in her hand now is a familiar story. Some sorrows, a good mind
for money, a calm life, the lifeline long and growing weaker. The palm
of the old. There seem to be few secrets held here. When she uncovers
him he is there as she expected. Well dressed, but old, and thin like a
bird or a mouse. Many of the people here fit this picture.

There is no one here to see her but still she glances softly and does
not dwell on her curiosity. Her job here is to help these people
through their final step. Perform rituals to dispose of their
containers. Friends say it must be awful work, but she has always felt
at peace with the dead. People can be frightening, but with the
aggression and anger drained from them they all seem calm. Passengers
travelling quickly through her terminal, no complaints, no opinions.
The rest of the world's inhabitants seem too full, too busy in
comparison.

She turns him over and he sighs; just the last of the air pushed from
his lungs by the weight on his ribs. This has long since stopped
bothering her. Occasionally someone catches her off guard, when that
final breath exhales a smell, another clue, wine or sea water or the
rancid breath of illness. But this breath is never followed; it is a
statement not a question.

The porter wheels in a new member to her exclusive club. A Large man by
the look of the sheet. She signs the papers and chats to the porter, he
calls her "queen of the dead" and "Princess of the dammed," and his
jokes are full of affection and to some degree she agrees with him. She
is royalty in this room. Possessor of something that has now been
denied to all the others who lie here.

As the porter leaves she slips her hand under the sheet, smiling at the
thought that at any other point in this mans existence such a move by
her may have been cause for some excitement. But now he is truly beyond
caring.

The hand she withdraws is large, strong and beautiful. Long fingers,
neat nails, strong clean lines. The mound of Venus by his thumb is
pronounced; he must have been capable of loving well. She is surprised
to see his lifeline is long too. This death was clearly not part of his
plan. A life slipped out from beneath him with no warning? Checking his
forms she notes he was only 38. This heart line is also a surprise, few
crosses and lines, a heart true to one person perhaps, or maybe a love
which was constant like that of a man of god. Sometimes the hands of
the devoted read of a decisive love seldom known by mere lovers,
husbands and wives. Intrigued she pulls back the sheet early and looks
at his face and clothes. He is not wearing ecclesiastical garb. But
maybe he was not working.

His face is broad and clean-shaven. His eyes open and turned skyward.
He looks distracted but not fearful. Rested. She closes them softly.
This place is not one to be looked at, too harsh and white for
unblinking eyes.

Turning again to his hand she sees at a different angle a thin scar
dissecting its way across the base of his hand. Not for the first time
she wonders at the coincidence, how marks, which surely bear no
relation to our destinies, can read like part of the map. A clean
healed cut so thin it can barely be seen, but clearly cutting across
his life line. A deciding moment? She wonders, when fate changed its
mind and decided to rob this man of the years to come. A theft
unnoticed until too late. She is not sure her faith extends that
far.

She turns her attention to her work. His shirt is undone and as she
rolls him over to remove it she finds blood on the back. He must have
been dead on arrival for the hospital to leave him dressed. His back is
broad the skin brown and without blemish. The mark in the centre looks
small and innocuous. It must be very deep, but she will look at that
later. She wonders what he had done to deserve such a fate.

His neck reminds her of a boy she sat behind at medical school. She
would stare at him in lectures dreaming; she has always been divided,
half dreamer, half scientist, like oil and water comfortable together
but never mixing.

She turns him again and begins to check for other marks. He is a
handsome man really, even without that spark of energy. This pondering
the dead does not make her sad. Spending so much time with them has
convinced her that the loss is not truly theirs, but those left behind
to grieve.

At that moment the door is pushed open and a police officer fills the
frame. He asks can she make the body respectable for a relative of the
diseased? She pulls the sheet back up and smoothes his hair, a motherly
caress that must strike the nervous policeman as odd. He is young, and
confused at finding an attractive woman in this awful place. Not the
first to be startled at finding her here.

He leads in a young woman, she has obviously been crying but his grip
on her arm is not one of compassion but proprietarily. Perhaps she is
in his charge. She looks barely strong enough to carry herself let
alone push a knife through resisting flesh and bone. But you never can
tell. The little woman in his care rushes forward to the body on the
trolley. He allows her to go and turns his attention to the mortician.
"She was with him when they found him, covered in blood and swearing
blue in the face to her innocence." He continues with his muttered
diatribe, trying to make small talk in a setting as unfamiliar to him
as a wrestler in the company of choirboys

She turns her attention to the couple. The woman is wringing her hands
and wailing. Then she begins to beat the body with her fists and scream
abuse at it. Both the mortician and policeman rush forward, he to
restrain her and she, strangely, to protect her ward, although she
knows he is beyond harm. The little woman seems shocked by their sudden
approach and lunges for a tray of tools and swings at them.

The mortician throws up her hands to protect herself and the policeman
grabs at their attacker. Holding her firmly, and cursing, he pulls her
from the room yanking something from her hand. As they go he throws it
down and apologises. The mortician is stunned, she looks at her scalpel
lying on the bed and realises for the first time that she has been cut.
Blood drips on to the white sheet she turns over her hand to see a thin
cut across the base of it, and she wonders, as she bandages it will it
scar.