Memoirs of a Mortician

CHAPTER 1

"I HATE ALL DENTISTS—categorically!" the old man's face taking on the ruddy colour of impending apoplexy.

"...with their fiendish stainless-steel instruments of torture..." he continued undiminished, a tiny web of spittle now stretching pendulously from his chin.

...strange place for a tiny spider to live... the boy thought.

"...All sadistic brutes, the lot of 'em. No doubt bullied while in school and now hell-bent on revenge!"

Still no end in sight. The boy began to worry. It had never been this bad before...

"I mean, WHO, in blue blazes, answer me that!... gives these Sick-O's medical licenses in the first place?

"Oooh. I'm sooo sorry, Mr Smyth, but we'll need to yank every tooth in your head... One at a time, sadly... using my rusty pliers that served so well in the Great War... And perhaps, if you grovel sufficiently", the old undertaker's face twisting up, pretzel-fashioned, "a smidgeon of pain killer might be found in the cupboard somewhere..." the old man mimed, clownishly.

"What in TARNATION could these damnable dental boards be thinking! Can't they appreciate the dangers of handing out diplomas to bent specimens like this?", pointing his scalpel at the corpse laid out in front of him. "Loosing such feral beasts as him on innocent citizens? Monstrous! That's what it is!!"

Only then did the old mortician seem to notice his young apprentice, now cowering in the corner staring wide-eyed from across the mortuary, his left hand shakily groping behind him for the unseen door handle.

"HMMPH.. Well..." embarrassed now, "You see, being a mortician by trade, my boy, I could tell you stories... Too true, I could!"

"Attending the 'Dearly Departed' for more than 100 years..." adjusting his heavy, gore-spattered leather apron, "I've witnessed more than a thing or two—oh yes, I have. Curl your toenails, I could...".

The 16-year-old son of the local hardware merchant, and the undertaker's latest participant in a long line of failed apprenticeships, had listened to his mentor's bombast often since enrolling 6 months ago. But today's rampage had been the worst—by far—during his short time at the mortuary.

Did he just say, '100 year'...?

"...And that makes this particular client, sooo relevant, my boy!

You see, when I was a child this twisted specimen was my dentist; and believe-you-me, I can still recall every... grisly... minute I spent in his chamber of horrors."

"This sadistic monster", savagely burying his scalpel blade deep into the corpse's right eyeball—a jellified ooze resulting upon its abrupt retraction, "Well, I'd be quaking in my boots, I would, waiting to be dragged into his perverse lair... And my mother... well, she would JUST SIT THERE, 'tutt tutting', reading her Home & Garden Magazine while I screamed...and screamed...

"Don't fret over the eyeball" he said quickly, noting the horrified look now creeping across his apprentice's face. "We always replace 'em, anyway, with glass ones."

"...Of course," he continued, "this abomination never once apologized for all the suffering he so gleefully inflicted upon his defenceless victims. Never!

Well, rest assured my child. No bad deed goes unrewarded in this life! No, indeed.

And so now, we have the monster on our table... Oooh, Yesss—We well and truly have him in our grips now, haven't we!" a joyful, maniacal cackle bursting forth from the old man.