The Mourning After

    At the time, Colin believed the 25th of September 2031 to be the worst day of his life, now that day had faded into tomorrow and Colin wasn’t so sure.  All the distressing sights he witnessed, all the terrible things that happened to him and the upsetting news he received, he had all enjoyed more than what he needed to do on the 26th.
    It was very early in the morning, still dark out, Colin and Victoria had already driven over to the Funeral Home together and taken one of the vans.  Ian and Clark did most of the collections but this was, understandably, special circumstances.
    Colin had been on body runs before; his father had taken him on his first when he was about 21.  It was an old man who died alone in his house, it had been five days before a neighbour complained of the smell, Colin could remember every detail about that man’s appearance and, more importantly, his odour.
    After experiencing that Colin could handle anything, including seeing his own mother, he hoped.  The plan was to collect her together, take her back to the home and cremate her, simple.
    “Are you alright?” Victoria asked him during the journey.
    “Fine,” Colin said.
    “Are you positive that you don’t want Natalie and Ian to take care of this?” she said.
    “They won’t even be awake by now,” he said.  “I don’t want to disturb them when we are perfectly capable of handling it ourselves; I want to get this done quickly.”
    “You don’t want an actual funeral or anything?” she said.  “We could have a memorial service instead, with some words being spoken to remember her by.”
    “No thank you,” he said flatly.
    The rest of the journey continued in silence, Colin drove quite fast to get this over with as quickly as possible.  They arrived at Wellfield, Victoria turned to say something but Colin had already exited the vehicle.  She followed after him through the main doors where they approached the main desk together.
    Sitting there was the same woman he had seen countless times before and whose name he could never remember.  He had known her for far too long to ask her now so Colin attracted her attention by simply saying, “Hello there.”
    “Oh Colin,” she said.  “I’m so sorry about your mother, but what are you doing here?”
    “I’m here to collect my mother,” he said with a perplexed look upon his face.
    “What?” she said.  “Has no one told you that your mother has passed away?”
    “Of course they have, that’s why I’m here,” he said.  “I’m a funeral director.”
    “Oh,” she said.  “I’m really sorry but she’s not here anymore.”
    “What do you mean?” he said.
    “When it happened we called an ambulance,” she said.  “They took her to the hospital.”
    “What?” he said, not being able to comprehend what he was being told.  “Why would you do that?  That’s not what’s meant to happen.  You were supposed to wait for me.”
    “I’m sorry Mr. Shaw,” she said.  “We didn’t have that on file, we made a mistake.”
    “Is she still there?” Colin demanded.
    “I don’t know,” she admitted.  “I guess so.”
    “I don’t believe this place,” he said.
    Victoria held his arm and said, “Let’s just go and get her.”
    “Fine,” Colin said and began to storm out.
    Colin and Victoria got back into the van and began yet one more journey for the night.  Colin was feeling very frustrated by now, he sped off in the direction of the nearest hospital at an even faster rate than before.  Having not been to sleep yet did nothing to dampen his current stress levels caused by all this running around; he just wanted this night over and done with forever.
    When they finally reached the hospital, once again did they get out of the van, removing the trolley beforehand this time.  The tired pair entered the hospital, this time Colin just went up to a nearby employee and stated, “Morgue.”
    They were pointed in the general direction and told how to get there, Colin and Victoria followed these instructions into the lift and down towards the basement.
    They trundled along until finding the door, which they entered through and looked around, it seemed empty.  Looking around the two could see a large bare morgue, their footsteps made hard clicking noises as they ventured into the room.  Victoria eventually called, “Hello?  Is anyone in here.”
    Then a face appeared from around a corner that they had initially noticed, all the walls were the same white tiles and they blended into one another quite easily.  The face belonged to a young man, maybe early to mid thirties, he wore glasses and had a look that was a mixture of confusion and agitation.
    “Who are you?” he said.  “You’re not hospital personnel, you can’t just come down here.”
    “My name is Colin Shaw,” he said.  “I’m here to collect someone.”
    “Colin Shaw?” the doctor repeated.  “Yes, Wellfield called about your arrival, something about an administrative error.”  The young doctor approached him and shook his hand, saying, “Hello, my name is Doctor Upton.”
    “It’s nice to meet you,” Colin said.  “This is Victoria.  Do you have the person we’re here to collect?”
    “Eh…yes,” he said as he picked up a ledger from a nearby table.  “Mrs. Shaw, right?  Is she a relation?”
    “My mother,” he said.
    “How sad,” Upton said.  “Well, you have my condolences.  She’s over here.”
    Upton directed them over to a silver wall full of human-sized drawers as Colin reached inside his jacket pocket and produced some papers that he handed to Upton.
    “These are our certification documents,” he said.
    “Huh?” Upton said while opening the drawer.  “Whatever, just take her will you?”
    “You don’t want to see them?” Colin said.
    “I don’t care,” he said.  “I just want all people who aren’t supposed to be here out of here.”
    Dr. Upton opened the drawer and slid out a long black bag.  Colin needed to make sure it was her, he slowly walked over, partially unzipped it and peered in, it was her.
    Colin didn’t know what to feel or think, he really didn’t have the time, he just zipped it back up and directed his wife to take her feet, together they hoisted the bag onto their trolley.
    They sombrely wheeled her away, thanking Dr. Upton and didn’t stop moving until they were back outside with the van where they began the process of putting the trolley, along with the new body on it, back inside the van.
    Not a word was said until the funeral home was in sight, Vic turned to Colin as he parked.
    “It’s almost over now,” she said.
    Colin got out of the van and took a moment before helping his wife with the removal of his mother.  The Sun was beginning to rise, it was finally a new day.
    They set about quickly transporting her into the crematorium.  As they were about to begin, Victoria said to Colin, “Did you hear that?”
    “Hear what?” Colin said.
    “I though I just heard the main doors open,” she said.
    “Why would you hear that?” he said.
    “I can’t choose what I do and do not hear,” she said.  “I’m just telling you what it sounded like.”
    “Okay,” he said.  “Wait here, I’ll go look.”
    Colin left the crematorium and proceeded up the main corridor, he approached the front door and looked around a bit.  He couldn’t see anyone, then he checked his office, empty, and the break room, not so empty.  In the kitchen area was Clark.
    “Clark?” Colin said, louder than he meant to.  “What are you doing here?”
    She turned round quickly, obviously startled, she was wearing a red patterned oven mitt.  “Not sneaking up on people,” she defended herself.  “Because I don’t want to give anyone a heart attack.  What do you mean what am I doing here?  I work here.”
    “I mean what are you doing here so early?” he said.
    “Oh,” she said before her frantic explanation.  “Well, I woke up at about six this morning, not really sure why and I had this urge to bake a cake but I didn’t have one of these thingies at my house.” She was referring to the thingy on her hand.  “And then I started to make my cake.  Is that okay?  What are these things called anyway?”
    “That’s fine,” he said.  “And it’s an oven mitt.  Listen, I’m glad you’re here, I’ve got a job for you…”
    “Do you know if you had one of these things but with separate bits for each finger so it’d be like a heat-resistant glove,” she ignored him.  “Could you call it a ‘Gloven’ Mitt?”
    “I neither know nor care,” he said.  “Now focus, you’ve got work to do.”
    “No I don’t,” she said.  “We’ve got two cremations today and they’re both in the afternoon.”
    “Something new came up,” he said.  “You’ve got a body waiting for you in the crematorium.”
    “Who is it?” she said.  “When is the family coming for collection?”
    “Doesn’t matter,” he said.  “You just have one thing to take care of, now do it.”
    “Fine,” she said.  Clark began to sulk slightly, took off the oven mitt and left the break room.
    “Clark, wait a minute,” he said.  “The ashes of this one, can you put them in an urn, a nice one?”
    “The family asked for an urn?” she said.  “That’s unusual.”
    “Well, that’s what they want,” he said.  “Give it to me when you’re done, okay?”
    “Alright,” she said and left.
    Colin realised something and followed her, as they arrived together Colin said to his wife, “Vic, Clark’s here so she’s going to take care of the body, alright?”
    Victoria looked confused for a moment or two and then said, “Okay.”  She walked past the pair and went in the direction of the break room.  Colin watched her go, then looked back at Clark getting ready to work, everything seemed fine.
    Then a noise distracted him, it was coming from the garage, he entered to see what could be happening now and was surprised to find the van that Colin had just used with its bonnet open and Ian working on it.
    “Ian?” Colin said.
    Ian slowly turned his head round and said, “Hey Colin.”
    “What are you doing here so early?” Colin asked.
    “I normally get here about this time,” Ian said.  “What are you doing here so early?  “Did you just drive this van?  I told you there was something wrong with it.”
    “Eh yeah,” he said.  “I had to.”
    “What for?” Ian said.
    “My mother died and I needed to collect her,” Colin said.
    “Oh,” Ian said.  “I’m really sorry Colin.”
    “That’s alright,” Colin said.  “Just don’t tell Clark, she’s cremating her right now.”
    “Do you want to go into the break room?” Ian asked.
    “Yeah alright,” Colin said.
    They both joined Victoria in the break room, this was unusual because she was seldom in there, most of the time she was working in the former mess hall, but not now.  Colin and Ian fixed themselves some tea and sat down at the table in the kitchen area.
    “Do you want to talk about it?” Ian asked.
    “I don’t really have anything to say,” Colin said honestly.
    Colin drank his tea and looked over at what Victoria was watching to take his mind off the past twelve hours or so, it looked like a nature program.  Colin didn’t like those shows, they all seemed the same, an animal spends all it’s time searching for food so they can live to see the next day, which they can spend looking for more food to keep on existing.  It all seemed so pointless to him.
    As he thought about it further, humans still followed the same pattern except that food has now become replaced with money, because money is more valuable then food.  It can be used to attain all the food you need as well as every other commodity people now consider just as necessary.  This way, humans spend virtually all their time making money or coming up with new ways to make money so they can keep existing.  Colin couldn’t exactly judge this as he was also human and conformed to this trend just as much as everyone else, even if he wished he didn’t.
    Victoria changed the channel over to the news so Colin turned back to Ian and said with a lowered voice, “Actually, there is something I need to tell you.”
    “Is it to do with your mother?” Ian said.
    “No,” Colin said.  “It’s about something that happened to me before I found out about my mother.  It’s something about Dominic.”
    “Dominic?” Ian said.
    “You know, Dominic,” Colin explained.  “He’s Vic’s brother, you’ve met him once or twice.”
    “Oh, that guy,” Ian said.  “Yeah, I remember that guy.  What about him?”
    Colin leaned closer so Victoria couldn’t hear him.  “Well, I was with him last night…”
    “Oh my God!” Victoria cried.
    Colin and Ian sat bolt upright and said together, “What?”
    “Come here,” she said.  “Quick.”
    They both got up and rushed over until they were standing behind the settee.  Victoria gestured for them to watch the TV.  The news was on and the man talking had a very stern expression on.
    “These reports are very preliminary, they have not yet been verified but what we’re hearing is that very early this morning a paramilitary group only calling themselves the ‘Scottish Militia’ launched very violent simultaneous attacks on several key locations around the city of Edinburgh.  Apparently, this all began when a large group of heavily armed individuals assaulted the Scottish Parliament Building…”
    “I don’t believe this,” Colin said.
    “…At the same time this occurred, many large police stations all over the city were hit by more of these armed conspirators.  I’m afraid we don’t have anyone in position yet to give us a live update of the situation, these descriptions are only coming from eyewitnesses.  These attacks are described as very organised, as a result the police cannot respond to the invasion of the Scottish Parliament.  Many police hostages have been taken and an announcement has been made just moments ago, saying that they are in control of the city and that they did this to ‘give Scotland back to the Scottish’.”
    “Has this really happened?” Ian said.
    “I’m afraid it has,” Colin said.  “And that’s not the worst thing.”
    “What could be worse than this?” Victoria said.  “And how do you know if this is real or not, maybe it’s an elaborate hoax, is it the first of April again?”
    “I know because Dominic is with them,” Colin said.
    “How’s that possible?” Victoria said.  “He was with you last night.”
    “It was more like I was with him,” Colin said.  “He took me to this weird meeting where there was this army waiting, their leader kept talking about freeing Scotland and they were handing out guns.”
    “Dominic?” Victoria said.  “Why would he do that?”
    “I don’t know,” he said.
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” she said.
    “Hey!” he said.  “I had to run from that place, they were going to kill me.  I tried to tell you but then we had something else to take care of, remember?”
    “What’s all this shouting about?” Clark said, having just arrived with a dark blue urn in her arms.
    “Nothing Clark,” he said.  “Are you done?”  She nodded, Colin then took the urn from her and said, “I’ll keep this in my office.”
    Colin then left as Clark’s attention turned towards the television, he could see her watching, open mouthed, as he left and entered his office.  He placed the urn on his desk and slumped into his slightly comfortable chair, Colin looked around as if expecting help to come out of the walls.  He had never experienced so much significance in such a short space of time before in his life.
    Colin leaned forwards and placed his head in his hands, he knew he needed to get some sleep and he also knew that trying to would have proved fruitless.
    He felt so strange, like that time he had driven to work not that long ago and the ambulance had sped past him.  The sight of that noisy and active machine flying right by him, leaving him behind with absolutely no power to stop it.
    That was exactly how he felt right now, Colin neither knew what was going to happen nor what he was going to do.  He looked at the urn Clark had chosen, it was quite a nice one, rich blue with thin gold patterns around the top and bottom.
    “So what do I do now?” he asked it.