The Tarnished Locket

"It's a gaudy little piece of antiquity," the mortician mused as his gloved hands fingered the charm that lay limply against the cold flesh of his current client. It was a bit smaller than his thumbprint, elliptical in shape and made primarily of tarnished silver but also, for colour he assumed, was decorated with an embossed flower design of brass that was slightly off center. Despite this cheap appearance, the relatives of his client had been clear that it not be removed from her body at any time; not even during the embalming process.1

Most of his colleagues, he knew, would have removed the necklace despite the requests of the family, viewing it as a nuisance to deal with when attempting to work with the chemicals of his trade. While this was certainly the most practical option, and he, like his colleagues, was a very practical man, he was also a man dedicated to his work and would not break a promise to the family of his client. If they found out, his reputation would be at stake, perhaps even his job. Thusly, he followed the family's instructions and worked around the necklace with the utmost care throughout the evening.2

He was in the process of doing makeup at the time and removed his hand from the charm he'd been fondling to return to his work. The insistance of the family had left him burning with curiousity as to the significance of the ugly little thing and it had thrown him into distraction from his pressed work. He was running behind schedule. The skin he needed to colour and bring to life was still as cold and grey as cement. He flickered his eyes over to his kit and tools and then, compelled, returned them to the jewellery with a gasp.3

Down the left edge of the charm was a hinge, barely even noticeable in its minuscule size.4

"A locket," he breathed, taking the piece between his finger and thumb, the latter pushing against the clasp on the opposite side as if to open the thing. He shook his head and dropped the locket, feeling ashamed of himself. It was like the tomb of an Egyptian pharoah, something private and treasured-- never meant to be opened. The flower betrayed no ill message or noted of a curse in the way of the extravagent Tut's doorway, but it felt just as ominous to even consider cracking open, warning or no. It was sacred, the mortician knew, and thus let it lay upon the pallid, slack chest and moved to his supplies.5

He looked to his client's face and felt the locket burn into his imagination once more. Her name was Maggie and she was eighty-four at the time of her death. She'd been born in America: New York City, the year, 1919. Her father's name was Gerald, like his own, and her mother's was Meredith. This he'd learned from her birth certificate and truly, it was all he knew. But not all he could know: the locket, laying there, tempting now as though it were made of platinum and gold, could tell him more. Could reveal to him her most precious of secrets and sate his childish need to pervade the lives of his clients. But no. Once again he looked sharply away, though painfully aware of the slight metallic glimmer in his peripheral vision. 6

Within his imagination, (and he damned it, then, as he'd damned it every time he was tempted with a mystery), he could see his hand breaking open that cheap shell and in the process shattering the boundaries of death as he knew it. That locket laying there, that should have been innocuous, that he should have cast aside for it was nothing but bad silver, probably forged in Japan or China or Taiwan by a worker who could care less about its quality as long as he and his family ate that night. . .7

That locket was the key to parting death's opaque curtain and peering through the gap and viewing the life and memories now extinguished. He imagined what was inside the locket, tried to make an educated hypothesis. Born in 1919? That would have made this woman in her twenties during World War two. In his imagination, when he opened the locket he saw a photo of a young soldier there, yellowed with age but still vibrant, still filled with the love Maggie must have used in placing it there. He could imagine Maggie sending that man off to war with tears-- proud, sad, grieving, triumphant-- in her eyes still aquamarine as opposed to the haze of senility's cataracts. And after recieving the telegram that informed her, as it informed so many, of her beloved's death, setting the picture in the locket he'd scrounged to buy her when the world was in a depression. He imagined her laying in a quilted bed always too big, alone except for that locket whose coldness she cradled to her bosom as the hours slowly trickled by like the tears of quiet grief. He saw her remarrying, in her thirties now, standing at the altar beside a new love, not wearing the locket, (how inconsiderate to her groom!), but with it tucked against her palm beneath the protection of white gloves. He saw her wandering the isles of the grocery store and seeing a young man and thinking, and blinking, and then touching the lump beneath her shirt where the locket lay. 8

He sighed, and then he smiled, looking down upon his client's sleeping face with tears in his eyes before turning decisively toward a cupboard and pulling out a bottle of silver polish and a small rag.9

With the greatest of reverance and care, he took the locket in his hand and rubbed at it with the polish and rag until it gleamed anew, the suddenly admirable detail of its tiny flower decoration becoming apparant. Satisfied, he set the trinket against the cold flesh of his client once more, and even as he stood back to admire his handywork, the locket fell open. Gerald the mortician stared for a moment, unable to react to the event out of surprise. The locket was empty. He smiled slightly and patted Maggie's hand affectionately before turning to his makeup kit. What did it matter what the locket actually held (or in this case, didn't?), it had served its purpose as a reminder to Maggie of a memory she needed not share with another soul, and to Gerald a reminder that she had once been truly alive.10