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A Pound of Flesh

In my business, there are many types of rag-and-bone men, from the simplerecycler right down to the ones who remove scrap metal from vehicles. It is an industrywhere each person takes care of his own business and leaves everyone alone. One man’strash might be someone’s gold bonanza. There is no need to kick a fuss about price hikesor complain about competitors until our ears drop off. Simply put, we work best on our own.As for me, I am quite happy with what I do. It keeps me well fed and provides mea nice warm roofed house to go home to. Some of my friends think that my business is atad on the morbid side of things but hey, someone has to do it and it is me, Jonah August.On my name-card – yes, I know it is bloody antiquated to have one – it says

Jonah August

Renderer

No corpse too big or too small.

Yep, you have heard it right. Corpse. That is the ‘morbid’ part. What I do

aservice. You know the Periodic Table? I break the human body into all its wonderfulmineral compositions, calculate their worth based on them and give the approximate cashto their loved ones (who end up benefiting from their loss).As I have said, someone has to do it.~*~ Now, cremation is still de rigueur and I do not really mess around with thecompanies doing it. Whatever they are doing, they are doing just damned fine. I am just providing more, so to speak. In cremation, the body gets the extreme barbeque treatmentand is rendered down to just ash and a few bits of bone. I do more as in that I put thecorpse in a machine that separates fat, water and the minerals. Of course, at the end of theday, the fat and water go somewhere else (to a couple of companies who deal with waste-

filtration) and the minerals are sold to manufacturers who need them. I am just giving people more choices to remember their dead.Like any other business, I get all sorts of people walking in with their corpses ontoll. Normally, they have their dead still clad in their everyday wear or hospital smock (if they are picked from the hospital morgue); they come in, red-eyed and sobbing quietlyinto their tissues or handkerchiefs. So, I try to make their time in my office a pleasantsoothing one, with piped music (some long-dead musician named Yanni) and somenibbles (chips and stuff), while I pull out my sales-pitch and do my best persuading them.Most of the time, they take the offer straightaway.I will analyze the corpse first, checking for implants. Silicone is the worst. Totallyscrews up the machines big time. If the body has been modified or altered in some way,the composition will be different. Extra iron or gold in the sorters. Then, if the corpse iscertified clean, it goes right into the machine. On busy days, I have about five or sixmachines cranked up.An acquaintance questioned me once where I had gotten the money from, either to give the sad folks or to make the machines. I told him in a flat tone that it came froman old scientist friend of mine who passed away and the friend stopped asking me. I didnot care if the acquaintance (not the scientist one) was a cop from the nearby precinct. He just stopped asking and I suddenly found myself with a box of vials filled with preciousminerals. Like the caring citizen I am, I placed the box of vials on the doorstep of thehouse of Mister Cop Acquaintance.I work best alone. Questions simply distract me from my business.~*~

My girlfriend (or ‘female companion’ as she calls herself) finds my work intriguing. So much so she writes poetry about it and recites them in seedy divesdowntown. Weekends find her lingering around in my house, bathed in jasmine. She isdressed in lacy white and her hair, straight and long, is also bleached white. Only her faceand the rest of her body are dyed permanent black. She fancies putting on yellow-amber contacts for effect. At least, she is not as bad as the wingfreaks who want to be real angelsand the butterflies who think they are very fashionable (not).She lisped to me once that she was a moth. When I told her that she was not aninsect, she retorted that it was just an identifier. Apparently, a long time ago, there were people who dressed in black and were called goths. The trend seems to have reverseditself and now, there are moths.She cornered me, after a morning of sex and sweaty sheets, only to recite me anew poem.

A pound of flesh for gold,Transcending death’s vicious sting,We become immortal.

Admittedly, it was not her best effort. I nodded and smiled my appreciation whileshe brushed her white hair and sang to herself about angels.~*~

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A Pound of Flesh

In a future, a rag-and-bone man meets an angel and learns more about himself.

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Category:	Creative Writing > Short Stories
Rating:
Upload Date:	04/20/2009
Copyright:	Attribution Non-commercial
Tags:	speculative fiction speculative fiction (fewer)