Short Story: The Coroner's Coronation

     The grievous smell associated with death covered that room in darkness. The chill ran through the room, making even the dead body's spine shiver. The splattered blood from ages ago painted the room in deep red as the screams and terror of the cadavers hid behind the pin drop silence. 

    As he set his foot inside the room, there began a new day; very much like every other day for him, the Chief Pathologist and Coroner in Charge at the local government mortuary. Fifteen years, fifteen lifeless years have creaked by since the first day he tore open a dead body. He will never forget that day, as for him, it was very much like a field day. With scalpels sharp enough to skin a wild buffalo, he tore open a dead body like a child eagerly ripping apart the wrapping of a birthday gift. With his hands he dived deep into the body, exploring every crevice with amazement. It took him hour after hour to meticulously go through the entire dead body, completing the autopsy.

    Now with almost two decades of experience, as the paint in that room faded, so has his enthusiasm. The movements these days have become lethargic and plagued with disinterest. Like a well oiled machine, he goes through the routine autopsy procedure swiftly without much of a thought. Almost all the bodies look the same and nothing or no one ever came to bring back his interest; well at least not until that fateful day...

    As he entered the autopsy hall, decked out in the hospital issued gown, which had the feel of a butcher's apron, a smell greeted him; a faint odor which kept getting stronger and stronger. A smell so familiar yet so strange. There in that stainless steel table lay a body, covered in white sheets from head to toe. Irony existed in the fact that no matter how covered or wrapped up a dead body was, it could never escape the scrutiny of  the sharp scalpel, which decided its ultimate fate; ripping it up and leaving behind nothing uncovered or unexplored. 

    As he saw the body wrapped up in sheets, a faint breeze came into the room. And to him, the breeze brought with it a fear; one that he never felt before. That fear grew and grew until it blew up as he attempted to uncover the face of the dead body. What he saw took away his living breath. Like a dirty mirror, the sight that reflected upon him made his heart stop. 

    Ghostly pale and rigid, in the body laying on that throne he coveted all those years, he saw his own face. HE SAW HIMSELF; LIFELESS YET STILL ALIVE. 

       - Rithin.      May 29. 2018