HUMOR
An Afternoon Assignment as an Undertaker
Who is Pam?
Lisa called crying. It was a Saturday afternoon. A girl we weren’t dating had just dumped me minutes ago. And for some reason it had embittered me. I suspended my foul mood to focus on Lisa who wasn’t helping with her sobs and no details. I have never known how to behave around anyone crying. I didn’t know how to behave with Lisa especially after I had exhausted the questions about why she was crying.
“Pam is no more…” She finally said and sobbed some more.
I sympathized with her. Loss is always difficult to contend with. It then occurred to me that I didn’t know Pam. But you do not go around asking a bereaved about the identity of the deceased after they have just mentioned their name. I condoled once more with her. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know Pam.
“Where are you?”
“…home.” she replied amid sobs.
I put on my sneakers, ordered an Uber, and went straight to see Lisa.
Along the way, I phoned a couple of mutual friends just to confirm of whether they heard the news. Only Michael was aware, but didn’t know who Pam was.
While scaling the stairs to her apartment, I began to regret my hasty decision to see her in person. How exactly was I going to help! I am awkward around death and any news surrounding it. But she was my friend and I would do whatever was necessary.
Folded up in a shawl, Lisa didn’t even raise her face to meet mine. She was in pain and teary. I sat beside her in silence as I figured what to say and what to do.
“Sorry…” I mentioned about three times.
Then came the most frightening part.
“Will you later help me carry her out and find a burial site?” Lisa said.
I freaked. A dead body in the house! How was I to carry a dead body? I wasn’t as brave as she imagined. Definitely she had the wrong impression of me. And the undertaker part, I didn’t even want to think of it.
I started to think that she was onto some stronger stuff than whiskey she consumed occasionally. Or she was deranged. Someone in our circle had joked Lisa was losing her mind lately. And now it seemed she had lost everything. I hadn’t yet replied. My body was drenched in sweat and I stammered in my final attempt to answer her. Why the rush? And why wasn’t she calling the police or people who deal with dead bodies? I was asking her so many questions without asking her.
She then woke up to head to the next room. I followed her trembling, not to carry the body but to peep and see. I had decided to excuse myself afterwards and disappear. At that time too, I wished that other people would arrive too, soon enough to relieve me of the fear and anxieties, plus the undertaker duties.
I was shaking as we finally got to the room. But there was no body.
A fat hairy cat lay lifeless at a rug besides Lisa’s bed. She approached in and covered it with a brown clothing.
“Pam…!” she mentioned sobbing and patting it.
I sighed. Relieved that it wasn’t a human body. But why couldn’t she mention it was Pam, her cat.
We buried Pam that evening. Later I had to listen to the good deeds of Pam while she was alive. Cunning, stubborn yet lovely. And always the best company to Lisa.
