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Barsom Jones
12 August 2009 01:27Some artists are so good, they leave all of the other artists far, far behind them.
There is always squabbling amongst the top tiers of any professions. Jockeying for position, vying for bragging rights, salaries, bursaries, grants and papers. There’s always one or two people every fifty years or so, however, one or two savants for whom the profession comes as easy as breathing.
Money doesn’t matter to them. Their eyes are glazed. They do nothing else besides what they do. Be it cooking, gymnastics, music, physics, acting or what have you, these people have a freakish tendency to be inhuman. Not only in their talent, but also in their dedication.
They are aware of how they don’t fit in. They hold themselves back in social situations to appear like normal humans. They are uncomfortable reminders of how much potential we all have but rarely possess. The make people nervous.
Barsom Jones was one such prodigy.
He was a mortician. A necrodermist, he called himself. He was sought after all over the country. Chilled loved ones would be shipped to him so that he could restore them to a flawless, living pallor before shipping them back. Ruined heads posed no problem. Bear attacks, shotguns shells, tumours gone wild, none of it mattered. The bodies would return to the families as if they were merely napping. Merely ‘paused’ in the act of living.
He didn’t eat much. He didn’t talk much. If he worked on celebrities, he didn’t notice. He asked for detailed lists and photographs of the deceased to do his work. He asked for recording of the deceased’s voice to get a feel for the proper mandible shapes of the jaw. He asked for crying and laughing photographs of the deceased so that he could replicate recent echoes of those emotions in the eyes and lips.
He was happiest when he was working and when he wasn’t working, he was sleeping. His bank account grew fatter and fatter but he took no notice.
No one knew his dark, dark secret.
Every so often, once every ten or twelve years, he would visit the wards of the hospitals. He’d find someone with no relatives and a terminal disease.
He would poison that someone when no one was looking with a rare toxin that would mimic death.
He’d call the nurse, the victim would be declared dead, and Barsom would take that corpse free of charge and the town would applaud his decision. A charity funeral from the best mortician in the world. People were touched.
Later on in his morgue, he would let the person wake up but only enough so that he could paralyze him or her. The poison would keep the victim’s breathing too shallow and too slow to be noticed by the untrained eye. He’d keep the person down in the basement for a day or two to give the appearance of having done a great deal of work.
Then he’d have a giant open-casket funeral for the whole town to come and see.
The town would file past the casket, remarking on how life-like the person looked. As if the person were still alive. It was like tourists filing past the statue of David in the Louvre.
Then the casket would be shut and buried.
Barsom Jones kept wanting to be caught. It was the most thrilling thing he could think of. So far, no one had. He’d put five people into the ground alive.
tags
There is always squabbling amongst the top tiers of any professions. Jockeying for position, vying for bragging rights, salaries, bursaries, grants and papers. There’s always one or two people every fifty years or so, however, one or two savants for whom the profession comes as easy as breathing.
Money doesn’t matter to them. Their eyes are glazed. They do nothing else besides what they do. Be it cooking, gymnastics, music, physics, acting or what have you, these people have a freakish tendency to be inhuman. Not only in their talent, but also in their dedication.
They are aware of how they don’t fit in. They hold themselves back in social situations to appear like normal humans. They are uncomfortable reminders of how much potential we all have but rarely possess. The make people nervous.
Barsom Jones was one such prodigy.
He was a mortician. A necrodermist, he called himself. He was sought after all over the country. Chilled loved ones would be shipped to him so that he could restore them to a flawless, living pallor before shipping them back. Ruined heads posed no problem. Bear attacks, shotguns shells, tumours gone wild, none of it mattered. The bodies would return to the families as if they were merely napping. Merely ‘paused’ in the act of living.
He didn’t eat much. He didn’t talk much. If he worked on celebrities, he didn’t notice. He asked for detailed lists and photographs of the deceased to do his work. He asked for recording of the deceased’s voice to get a feel for the proper mandible shapes of the jaw. He asked for crying and laughing photographs of the deceased so that he could replicate recent echoes of those emotions in the eyes and lips.
He was happiest when he was working and when he wasn’t working, he was sleeping. His bank account grew fatter and fatter but he took no notice.
No one knew his dark, dark secret.
Every so often, once every ten or twelve years, he would visit the wards of the hospitals. He’d find someone with no relatives and a terminal disease.
He would poison that someone when no one was looking with a rare toxin that would mimic death.
He’d call the nurse, the victim would be declared dead, and Barsom would take that corpse free of charge and the town would applaud his decision. A charity funeral from the best mortician in the world. People were touched.
Later on in his morgue, he would let the person wake up but only enough so that he could paralyze him or her. The poison would keep the victim’s breathing too shallow and too slow to be noticed by the untrained eye. He’d keep the person down in the basement for a day or two to give the appearance of having done a great deal of work.
Then he’d have a giant open-casket funeral for the whole town to come and see.
The town would file past the casket, remarking on how life-like the person looked. As if the person were still alive. It was like tourists filing past the statue of David in the Louvre.
Then the casket would be shut and buried.
Barsom Jones kept wanting to be caught. It was the most thrilling thing he could think of. So far, no one had. He’d put five people into the ground alive.
tags