All Hallow's Grim....my entry

Thank you to dear Magaly for the opportunity to write about something slight dark, slightly shivery, slightly gross...............

From my desk, I have a view of the entire area. It is beautiful here and the people I get to visit with, are few and far between, but a pleasure none the less. I only see them if there is a complaint. Usually crows or moles but sometimes they come and want me to help them find someone and I get to pull out the old records which are housed in the delicious old leather bound books. The ones that have the smell of age, lineage, proper place, long gone time.

On this particular Hallow's eve, the sun has already begun it's decent over the fence to the west of my building. I watch as the cars go by, in a hurry to get nowhere in particular but speeding none the less. I see the people stroll by, pick up their pace and avert their eyes as they make the two block journey past the well manicured lawns. The evergreens sticking out like sore thumbs on a landscape of deciduous trees now plucked bare by the cold air that calls winter to come and take over the job of autumn. I am lost in thought when there is a slight knocking. At first I am taken off guard. When I turn, I expect to see a face at the reception window. But there is no one there. I get up from behind my desk and approach the window. Still I see no one there. It must be one of the tenants needing attention. They do that sometimes in the late afternoons.

I lock the office and proceed down the hallway, thinking I will find the inquirer waiting in the breezeway. Still I see no one. But I do hear Mr. Tellman calling my name. He is the little man who resides down the first corridor on the right. He is on the bottom floor for easy access for the many visitors he used to have. I say used to, because since his wife moved in, well, the visits have stopped for obvious reasons. And the bright decorations at the entrance are fading slightly as well. They used to be changed for every season, but spring is still the theme displayed and it isn't from this year but last. Poor old dear, he is insistent about my visiting him, But I let him know that I must attend someone else just now but that I will be back later, before I go home for the day.

I walk to the back of the building, looking down each hallway still finding no one looking back at me. I get to the back door and there are some of the other workers in the complex. I call to Eddie and ask if he has seen anyone milling about. He kinda laughs and says, "well yeah, Mrs. Tarnn was in". I laugh to think think of Mrs. Tarn and her thick makeup and tight dresses and of course the boyfriends. Most of them wait outside for her as she makes her visit to her husband. I guess so he wouldn't know that she had come with another man. She kisses him tenderly, leaving a bright red lipstick stain with every visit. It's hell to get off but Mr. Tarn really doesn't seem to have a problem with it.

The boys and Eddie are helping to move a resident from the east building to a location on the southwest corner of the large new complex. This resident had to settle for an outside location until the management company finished the new construction. That makes it about 18 months. So this guys making a move to a much nicer part of the complex. I can't remember his name and that really bothers me. I pride myself on knowing all the residents by name.

I join the others to see how they are doing in the move, when I hear Eddie yell. Perfecto and Jose have taken the very unsteady and large load and tipped it. Just as I reach where they are, the guy comes busting out of the box and starts rolling down the hill on which we are all standing. I should say parts of this guy....he is so badly decomposed that he makes a squishy, wet sound as the pieces speed down the hill to flop into a pile of ....... guy.

"Well that's just great!!" Eddie screams at the top of his lungs. "I knew it was gonna be a crap idea to move Mr. Flop on Halloween night".

I have to admit. I couldn't stop laughing except to retch from the odor of Mr. Flop....it was everywhere and so was he. Good thing he didn't have any visitors to help him make the move from one crypt to another. I can't imagine how they may have taken his exit. As a matter of fact, all these years later. I still get the heebie jeebies, when I think of having seen that sight on Halloween night when I worked at the mausoleum on the hill in the cemetery.

True and grim.