Glass Coffin

© 2002 Steve Goldsmith
All rights reserved.

Family and friends had arrived for the funeral reception at the home of Baron Mountjoy. The Baron's wife—the Baroness Mountjoy—had died two days earlier, at the age of thirty-one.

Baron Mountjoy stood in the corner of the room. He held tightly to a glass of wine. Many of the guests sat glued to the television, watching the news reports about the premature death of Baroness Mountjoy.

The baron lifted his head and looked about the room. The guests, dressed in black, muttered to one another like people do when somebody has just died—believing they shouldn"t speak too loudly or clearly to anyone else in the room, just in case they should cause offence. The baron spotted the man he was looking for.

"Renwick!" he called.

Renwick looked over to the host and then jostled through the people toward him. His hair was short and gelled to spikes on top. His eyes were green and sat close to each other. Below his eyes was a triangular nose with a pointed tip.

"Hello, Baron."

"Well done, Renwick. She looks very beautiful," the baron said as the two of them gazed together at the glass coffin the Baroness lay within.

"Tell me, Renwick. As her full-time embalmer, will you be able to keep her looking so beautiful; as beautiful as she was in life?"

Renwick smiled.

"Yes ... as long as you're able to supply me with the equipment and chemicals."

"Yes, of course. Whatever you need and at whatever cost."

"Then we shouldn"t have any problems, sir. By using my special treatments, I can preserve her this way as long as you wish."

They gazed again at the body of the baroness, lying peacefully in her long white dress, with her blonde hair resting on her shoulders. The baron and embalmer both looked up together as they heard the engines of the cabs outside.

"When the guests have left, Baron, I'll get straight to work."

It was a couple of hours before the final guests left. The baron and the embalmer carried the glass coffin into the basement and placed it on a table that sat in the middle of the room. It was only a small basement, a square-shaped room, with dark corners and dusty air. However, it was dry and appropriate for the embalmer's work. His equipment had already been moved into the room. The basement was lit by a single light, which hung above the table that the glass coffin lay upon. Renwick had his own lamp for the delicate work of maintaining the finer details of the body.

"Renwick," said the baron, "I'm going to be away for a few days—to clear my head. I"ve given the staff the weekend off also, so you'll be alone. You've got a key, right?"

"Yes," Renwick replied pulling it from his pocket.

"Treat the house as if it were your own."

"Thank you, sir."

"It's you I should thank. You're the best in the world at what you do, and that"s why I've hired you."

"Yes, sir."

"I"m sure you'll do a tremendous job for me. You're like a modern alchemist." The baron took a business card from his pocket and passed it to Renwick. "You can contact me on this number."

"Yes, sir."

"Goodbye. I'll see you soon," the baron said as he turned and climbed the narrow stone staircase to the door.

The embalmer set to work immediately on the task he would have to continue every day—carefully using his tools to preserve Baroness Mountjoy, the only way he could maintain her beauty forever.

Due to the smell of the chemicals, he had used only a reduced amount so far. They had been sufficient for the funeral, but the effects had almost worn off and her body had begun to decompose. He worked on the skin of her face, implanting chemicals, and used heavy makeup to hide the scaly blemishes. Her eyes had begun to sink into her skull and her lips looked thin and dull. Another problem was the jaw. It had begun to protrude. He had noticed it during the ceremony, but the untrained eye wouldn"t have noticed without a close examination.

Renwick stared at the corpse as a painter might upon a picture that had just been finished. Although the baroness" body was clearly deteriorating and in need of urgent attention, he already imagined the results of his work. In his mind's eye, she was already the beauty he would create of her. She would appear as if life were pulsating through her corpse. She would only seem to be sleeping, waiting to be awoken by the kiss of her husband and served breakfast in her glass coffin.

The embalmer glanced down at her legs. They were scaly and rough. Extremely pale, the only shade of color was the tint of blue her deathly body had taken on. But Renwick could see only the smooth and beautiful legs to which he would bring color and life. He was, for a moment, mesmerized. He looked at her face, then back at her legs. He placed his hand on one of the blue legs and ran it carefully over the cold flesh. As his fingers ran back down along the curves, he glanced at Baroness Mountjoy"s face again, as if searching for any sign of her enjoying his touch. His fingers nestled beneath her skirt. He lifted the silken fabric with his free hand and folded it back across her blouse. Her underwear was a light peach color. He gulped in a deep lungful of musty air as his fingers lingered over her crotch. His eyes fixed on her closed lids as he softly pulled the light peach fabric down to her knees. His heart thumped as he climbed into the glass coffin and upon her corpse. As he pressed himself against her, he felt warmth throughout his body.

Renwick carefully lifted himself from Baroness Mountjoy and climbed down onto the floor, then gulped down the glass of water that sat on the table.

"We had better get you back into shape," he said as he regained his breath. He ran his hand over her cheek and onto her lips. He lifted his fingers to his own lips, kissed the tips, then lowered them and touched hers again.

Renwick opened the cupboard and removed the chemical solution he was to pump into her body to prevent her from decomposing rapidly overnight. He opened his surgical kit, admiring each instrument as he removed it from the bag. The scalpel he examined closely in the lamp"s light.

As her body was so frail, Renwick had left her in the shallow glass coffin. Any unnecessary lifting might cause skin to tear or hair to fall out. He had designed the coffin to be a place he could operate within and, when he had finished, to put the glass lid back on in order to set her on display for the baron.

He leaned over the body and made a small incision into the femoral artery in her groin and then pumped the preservation chemical through her veins. When he had finished, he reapplied the makeup that had been smudged by his kisses. He dressed her as Baron Mountjoy had done before his departure. Within an hour she looked as fresh and beautiful as she had before. The embalmer gazed upon her, in awe of his ability to bring life to the dead.

"You look better now than you ever have."

Renwick climbed the basement steps, swinging open the door. The lobby"s light poured in, and then the basement filled with darkness again as the door closed. A few minutes later the door opened and Renwick returned with a sandwich in his hand. He sat down, crossed his legs, and ate as he read the newspaper. His eyes ran along the lines as he chewed his mouthful of pork. He swallowed.

"Tyson won. Third round knockout. He's still got his punching power," he said looking over at Baroness Mountjoy. "Let's see if there"s any news about your death, shall we?" he suggested, grinning. He flipped the paper over and turned the pages. "Here we go—page 7—not bad. You're big news. I'll read it to you, shall I?"

The lifeless corpse he addressed didn"t respond.

"Okay. 'Baroness Mountjo' — that"s you — 'died on Wednesday, age thirty-one. The much-loved wife of business tycoon Baron Mountjoy,' blah, blah, blah, blah — boring, boring. Oh, here we go. 'She had set up a hostel and had hoped to greatly reduce the amount of homeless people in the country.'

"How noble of you," he said as he glanced up at her. He suddenly noticed that her blouse had lifted just above her stomach; had risen as if a gust of wind had blown under it. He put the remains of his sandwich on the table and stood. As he stepped toward her, he folded up his newspaper and put it under his arm.

"Sorry, Baroness, I must have creased your blouse."

He leaned forward, took the glass lid off, and tried to flatten out the crease. The crease was a lump. A solid lump, which refused to reduce under the pressure of his hand.

"What have we here?"

Renwick lifted the blouse to reveal the small bulge on her stomach. The skin was pale and the bump lay beneath. Renwick's brow creased in thought.

"Maybe it was the chemicals. I pumped the correct amount into you, I promise. What could have gone wrong?" Renwick turned the strong lamp on and examined the golf-ball-shaped lump. Incredibly, it appeared to be growing. Within a few minutes it was twice its earlier size. Renwick paced back and forth in the room.

"What am I going to tell the Baron? What"s happening here?"

He sat down and stared in amazement as the lump grew larger. He held his head in his hands as the sweat dripped from his brow onto the dusty stone floor. After an hour the whole stomach had inflated.

"Stop growing!" he screamed with panic. As the echo died away, Baroness Mountjoy"s stomach began to shudder. Shivers of life ran through her body. Her legs jolted from the convulsions; her chest and head juddered with vibration. Renwick turned to escape—the glass cracked and shattered onto the floor, and the sound of gushing water filled his ears.

He turned to the baroness. Within the broken glass, between her legs in a pool of jelly and wetness, was a body. A baby.

Renwick stepped slowly over to the table. The wet jelly that had spilled with the birth began to drip to the floor. The embalmer panted heavily, feeling faint. He leaned against the table and moved his head closer to the baby that wriggled and waved its pink arms weakly. He looked up at Baroness Mountjoy"s beautiful face. Then he returned his eyes to the baby. He saw the large brown birthmark on the baby"s leg.

"I've got a birth..." his whisper trailed off. The baby gazed at him. The infant had more than just a slight resemblance to Renwick. It was an identical copy, down to the same triangular nose and pale green eyes. Its body may have been only a foot in length, but the baby's face was his. It was his double. The reflection he saw every morning in the mirror.

Renwick lunged forward and grabbed the umbilical cord, wrapping it around the baby's throat and pulling tight.

"This can't be real! You aren't real!" he shrieked.

As the umbilical cord tightened around the baby"s throat, the life began to drain from its body. The baby's face turned purple and its eyes began bulge from their sockets.

Renwick released his grip with a deep intake of air. He stared at the dead child. He paused, then leaned forward to shut the baby"s vacant eyes.

The baby stretched out an arm and its chubby fingers reached up to him.

Renwick jumped back and slipped on the wet floor, falling into the embalming equipment. Both he and the equipment crashed down under his weight. As he hit the cold ground, the embalming tubes wrapped around his neck and bit into his throat. He struggled frantically to break free from the tubing, but it was tight around his windpipe, strangling the life from him. The air was being squeezed out and his agonized breaths became shorter. Renwick"s chest tightened, as his last breath labored from his lungs.

His heavy eyes began to close as the basement door opened and Baron Mountjoy stepped into the light.

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