Embalmer’s Dilemma
Embalmer 2: Jesus Christ, Frank, that’s the heart. You pulled out the heart.
Embalmer 1: No I didn’t.
Embalmer 2: Yes, you dumbass, that’s the heart! Now what are we going to do??
Embalmer 1: (pause) So that’s the heart.
Embalmer 2: (mocking) “So that’s the heart”. Yes, that’s goddamn heart of Ramses. You’re an idiot. Haven’t you done this before?
Embalmer 1: (chilly tone) I served for ten years at Karnak.
Embalmer 2: In the cafeteria?
Embalmer 1: (even more chilly) I also was an embalmer for an additional seven in a private capacity in the embalming district.
Embalmer 2: Where?
Embalmer 1: I had a shop. I was two doors down from the wig shop, right across the street from Abrax the brewer.
Embalmer 2: Maybe we should call him.
Embalmer 1: (does not respond, stares down at the heart)
Embalmer 2: (Condescending). Well, it’s got to go back in.
Embalmer 1: (tiny voice) But will they really know.
Embalmer 2: (more condescending) What is Ramses going to do on the other side, without his heart? He won’t be able to think. Thoth will be questioning him or whatever, and here’s Ramses, just a skeletal body, just…sort of standing there…staring…
Embalmer 1: I saw him do that when he was alive.
Embalmer 2: (admitting a point) But still. Imagine if they found out.
Embalmer 1: How will they find out?
Embalmer 2: But if they did. Just…shove it back in.
Embalmer 1: Well, I know right where to put it, then, because I know what he was using to think with, but trust me, it’s too small. You know when you get that fine wool from Thebes, and they pack it up so tight, in those little paper packages….but you never get it back in right.
Embalmer 2: (thoughtfully) We’ll have to make bigger incision.
Embalmer 1: *That* they will notice for sure.
Embalmer 2: No, I’ll just put a nice gold belt over it, like I did that time for that fat broad I embalmed. 2 inch incision, my ass. I don’t have that kind of time.
Embalmer 1: I don’t even know where it goes. This has never happened before.
Embalmer 2: Well, he was right handed, and he think with his heart, so it’s on the right side. Sometimes I think you never went to school. You’re so lucky I’m here.
Embalmer 1: (meekly) Yes, I am.
Embalmer 2: But we should…tamp it down with something, because imagine if we stuff it back in, and it, just sort of wanders all around in there. Then we will have a mind, but he will notice that he’s acting all weird, I bet you, and it’s really going to piss him off.
Embalmer 1: But what can he do? He’s still dead.
Embalmer 2: I don’t know, what it seems to me some kind of dead apoplectic Ramses is as bad or worse as the live one.
Embalmer 1:(his turn to be condescending) You know, his foot is all fucked up, and I don’t know how that’s going to pass in the afterlife. It’s not like we’re working with a twenty year old belly dancer, here. There are obvious problems.
Embalmer 2: That’s not my concern. We’ve got to think of the family. I guess. I don’t know. The best thing to do is stuff it in there, and secure it with something.
Embalmer 1: Gold thread.
Embalmer 2: (amazed) Now that is a good idea. But where are we going to get it?
Embalmer 1: The seamstress to the Queen.
Embalmer 2: Won’t she have questions?
Embalmer 1: Yes. Many.
Embalmer 2: What are you going to tell her?
Embalmer 1: (slowly) I shouldn’t tell that it’s because we accidentally yanked out her Ramses’ heart, I know that much.
Embalmer 2: (no response)
Embalmer 1: I’ll say I am making the Queen a dress.
Embalmer 2: But what happens when she asks, later, about the dress?
Embalmer 1: I’ll say I forgot. Then I will ask her out.
Embalmer 2: Wait here. I’ll go. You…don’t leave. Stay right here.
(30 hours later)
Embalmer 2: Ok, I’m back. Wake up.
Embalmer 1: Scared you, didn’t I? I thought that would be a fun joke, if I stretched myself out next to Ramses on the slab, our heads both hanging off the edge, side by side, you would be like, ahh, Frank’s dead, Ramses killed him, ahhhhhhhhhh.
Embalmer 2: Shut up.
Embalmer 1: Like..AHHHHHHHHHH.
Embalmer 2: Take his nose ring out of your nose, too. That’s gross. Have you no sense of dignity?
Embalmer 1: Did you get the thread?
Embalmer 2: Yes, now…the important thing, and I was thinking about this coming home, through the market, we’ve got to stitch it up in there tight, but just anything will do. I mean, as long as it doesn’t move and is generally in the right location. Because, you know, you’re right, the foot is all fucked up, and that was *him* not *us*, they can’t blame us for that, and I don’t know how he’s going to…you know…get past that, but I guess there’s just some stuff you only find out after you’re dead.
Embalmer 1: I agree.
Embalmer 2: So let’s get that heart back in the body.
Embalmer 1: Yes I am tired of looking at it. Get some gold thread on there and let’s stitch it back in. It’s all you, bro.
Embalmer 2: Want to hit Abrax’s place on the way home, after this?
Embalmer 1: You bet.
