Decompositional changes were present in the form of a medium green discoloration on the abdomen and several areas where the top layer of skin was beginning to slip and gather in wrinkled chunks about the arms. Hypostasis is the settling of blood to the dependent areas, or the lowest areas. This resulted in dark purple post-mortem stain and severe swelling on the right side of her face, where Elvira had been laying on the dirty green linoleum of her kitchen floor. Clara made a mental note to reduce some of the swelling with cotton packs during embalming and inject a phenol chemical to attempt to bleach out some of the post-mortem stain from that side of her face.
She stepped back for a moment and looked at the little old woman in front of her. So here lies the woman who caused so much pain and chaos in the lives of my Mom and her siblings. So here she lies in all her glory, now crumpled and dwarfed by stainless steel.
EXCERPT from the story, The Cat Lady:
Some cats were nomadic spirits— cats which never gave themselves over to the comforts of a regular home. Mae had many such drop-ins over the years. Phantom was one of her favorites. He was a tall, lanky black cat with one missing eye. He had a hide full of crusty scars Mae could feel as she stroked him in various stages of healing beneath his coarse fur. He showed up usually around every third month or so, and stayed on for no more than a few days— just long enough for some rest and food and maybe a cuddle or two. Phantom was a creature who did not trust humans, and his strange commitment to Mae touched the deepest part of her loneliness. Phantom carried a piece to Mae’s puzzle as surely as any of the felines who needed her.
There was something else about the cats— something that Mae didn’t dare share with anyone. Something very secret that only she and a handful of others in the world knew—
Cats could sense when the aliens were coming.
EXCERPT from the story, Waste of Skin:
“Lookit this heroin overdose ova here. He done shot himself up so many times he got shoot-em-up scars all up and down his arms and legs! Oh, he be a skin-popper all right! Only twenty-two years old and he done be missing a buncha teeth like he be an old man already!” Tyrell shook his head in a coarse display of something akin to sympathy. “Ya know what my old man used ta say ‘bout guys who be shooting that smack?”
Norm made a questioning grunt.
“He’d say this boy ain’t nothin’ but a waste of skin.”
“Mmm… hmmm…” Norm mumbled his lackadaisical response. “Waste of skin.”
EXCERPT from the story, FAT:
His tired, phlegmatic eyes rose to the grey building before him, which seemed to tower higher than the bruised sky. Grey windows covered with iron bars were bolted on at the corners with thumb-sized metal screws. It was a cold building, this hospital of mental sickness. His eyes rose to the far left corner, the high security section— the part where they kept the criminally insane. There were no windows in that portion, just grey brick and mortar spotted here and there with gangland graffiti and a feeling of impending doom.
Mary was behind those walls, behind the high chain-link fences topped with wicked-toothed bobbed wire, waiting for him.
He grasped the handle of his battered blue Chrysler LeBaron and swung the massive door open, using the worn armrest for support in order to rise. He fumbled with his purple cassock for a moment, finally positioning it about his stooped shoulders while his Bible remained in one shaking hand.
He slowly began to walk toward the grey brick Goliath, his Bible in hand like a sling.