Another one...

They were back. Dressed in their shiny burgundy vests and with their cheesy smiles they looked more like caterers than undertakers. I got a tap on the shoulder from a nurse; "Do you have time to come outside for a second?"

I quickly scanned around to see if someone else could attend to this duty but alas there were no other males on and I felt kinda it was a job that a gentleman should step up to.

So I pressed the button on the airlock and walked outside into the cool summer night. The sun had just slipped over the western front and there was an eerie twilight ambeince. The tall lanky guy in the vest cranked open the door and slid out a big body bag zipped up tight.

"What's the story with this one?" I asked, not really wanting to know the answer to this morbid question.

"Hung himself 2 days ago... cops only found him today"

I kinda quikcly started mentally picturing how bad it could look so that I wouldn't be too shocked. I'd heard bad stories about how they can look.

The smell from the bag was not particularly pleasant. The stench of death lingers in one's nose for hours. He unceremoniously ripped back the plastic to reveal a pale head staring back at me. They hand't even bothered to close his eyes. His tongue hung out the side of his head, protruding in defeat.

It was a strange scene in the ambulance bay. Me, the caterer and the dead guy. He looked about 40 years old or so. Pale and cold. Lifeless and limp.

I did the obligatory listening for vitals and confirmed what we all knew anyway. He was dead.

I signed the necessary paperwork, washed my hands and went back inside the airlock to the land of the living. Back to patients who still had some chance and who although smelt bad, did not smell of death.