The Hearse Driver

The cobbles stretched far away yet not too wide, its rivery strands snaking away deep into the suburban nest. This was not the place where carriages come, for the roads don’t allow two to pass by abreast.  Some used to, but the arguments that would come when they would meet were vicious, and someone would always have to inch theirs back up to the corner. It led to many riders forgetting about these abandoned, secluded streets. When the last plague hit, people had to dig their own relatives’ graves in their dingy gardens. Now, every bit of grass was upturned and the soil was rife with maggots.

    My tired convoy trundled its way through clinging mid-morning fog; its thickening manifestation an omen of hideous nature. I rang the iron bell - the weight all undertakers bear. It rang solemnly, but cut through the overbearing silence. A silence that did not like to be broken.

    The shadows trailing in the mist bent, convulsed and roiled. I halted, the phantasmal blackness deepening, and a man pushed his way through. He was wearing a featureless white shirt and brown cloth trousers, tied off with a strip of leather. His shoes, up to the hems around his ankles were mud stricken. I didn’t comment on it. He didn’t introduce himself or speak, (speech was rarely necessary,) and no-one makes small talk with the hearse driver.

    Wordlessly, I clambered down from my perch. He led me to his door and ushered me in. The small flat was like any other on this street, with cramped stairs leading off up to a pair of tightly spaced bedrooms. Down the hall was the toilet, and to the right was the living room. He led me to the right. Off to the far corner was the door to the kitchen, and pressed against that wall was a dusty couch worn well with use. Laid upon it was a form buried in a thick blanket. I didn’t have to guess what it was.

    I walked over to inspect it, avoiding the small trainset that had been left out on the carpet. I grabbed one end of the blanket, and the face that eyelessly stared back at me was female, in her 30s with deep brown hair. Her face was blank, her eyes sunken. I pinched her cheek, and it reddened slightly. I checked her skin: no irregularities.

    “This woman did not die of cholera,” I concluded, peering over my shoulder, and for the first time noticing his eyes were red and dry. He moved over next to me and pulled the blanket to. There was a vivid crimson wound in the right of her upper chest; deep, but not too wide or thick. I leaned in to inspect it, and the skin around the wound was pale, aside from strips of dried blood than ran down her front. Her lung had been pierced, but no main arteries had been damaged. Even so.

    “The police have already been in,” he said, without emotion.

    “She couldn’t have been dead for more than a few hours.” I turned to face the man. “Are you alright?”

    “Yes I’m… I’m fine,” he responded. For the first time, I saw the slightest hint of emotion. A little quiver of a lip there, a slight clenching of his left hand. My eyes focused past him, and I noticed a shovel leaning against the doorframe he had led me through. I didn’t comment on that, either.

    I walked out the door, and moved to my carriage. Both my horses were slightly agitated, like they could sense the death sunken in the mist. I took out one of the empty coffins, the unvarnished wood rough to the touch. It was slightly undersized, (I’ve had to make some cutbacks,) and I was able to carry it back into the flat without help. “You wouldn’t be able to give me a hand, would you?”

    He moved stiffly, but walked around to the woman’s legs. I grabbed her under the shoulders, and we worked together to lower her into the coffin. The nails were hammered in with slow deliberation, and he again helped me to lift the wooden box out into the hearse. I took my pay and left, and he watched me dissipate into the fog from his doorway, before turning around and closing his door. Such discoveries of pointless tragedy were inevitable in my line of work, and I’d been working too hard lately.

    “Another for the overburdened graveyard, another for the pallid mud,” I thought to myself. “May God have mercy on their souls; all three of ‘em.”