Rest for the Undead

[WP] Vampire society have been loyal customers to a carpenter for years. He made the best coffins they have slept in for centuries, and never really got suspicious of so many wealthy people willing to pay premium for the same niche item. As he got old, the vampires tries to offer him immortality.

*****

The coffin Alastair steps into is made of bamboo. It's biodegradable -- just like him. This is his shop and it's packed with all kinds of coffins. He's been making them all his life but it's only the last decade people wanted bamboo or banana leaf or cardboard coffins. Cardboard, he thinks disdainfully. He's never made a cardboard coffin in his life and god knows he never will. Fit for a hamster, maybe, but not for a person. And maybe not even a hamster.

He lays back and closes the lid, letting the darkness drown him. Bamboo stinks, he decides. It's not for him. But the darkness is good.

Alastair's suffered migraines the last year. Being in such total darkness helps a little. Every day, after work, he's been getting into his coffins, partly for the dark, partly to test drive them because he's got a lump in his brain the size of a pebble and it's swelling quick. Growing. It's a weed that's taking all the water and all the soil that the older plants needed to live, so now everything's wilting except that weed.

He's not all that scared to die. He doesn't want to, but that's a different matter altogether. He's got young grandkids that he loves very much and he'd like to see what they turn into, what colour butterflies will burst out into the world. Plus, he doesn't want to die for more selfish reasons, too. He likes being alive for one, likes doing and learning and being. Simple as that. But scared he's not. He's not been scared for a long time.

He lies back for a while as dots waltz through the darkness in a rainbow of colours. To him, those dots are the tumour. It presents itself like that, in interesting ways. Somedays, he'll wake to see he left the oven on all night, or he'd called someone and walked away from the phone, or he'd find himself in the neighbours garden for no reason at all. That's how he sees the tumour, from the physical events it manifests. It's how it communicates to him, lets him know it's there.

There are three knocks then. Right on the bamboo lid.

He must have left the shop door open, wouldn't be the first time.

"We're closed," he says.

"Yes I know, but I really must talk to you," comes the muffled reply. It's a woman's voice. Even muffled it's smooth, calming.

He pushes the lid open and sits up in the coffin.

The woman to his side is young. Most people are young to him. Still, she must be early thirties? She's got dark hair in a neat fringe, a pale face, bright lipstick. Something of an old-fashioned movie starlet quality to her. It takes him back.

"What can I do for you?" he asks, trying to get out of the coffin. It's like getting out of the bath though and he slips twice. The woman offers a hand but he shakes his head and on the third try he gets over the edge.

"It's more what I can do for you," she says, pulling up a generous smile. "You see, I represent a consortium of--"

"Not interested."

"--of clients of yours. Former and future, hopefully."

He pauses. "Clients?"

"Yes. Of many people who buy your goods because they cherish your craftsmanship." She gestures around the shop at the various propped open coffins. "We've been importing your products for many years, but this is the first time any of us have visited your shop in person. But this time, it had to be in person."

He's always been strangely successful abroad. The catalogues sell his products better than the shop floor. It's admittedly unusual for his trade.

"That so?" he says.

"That's so."

"And what do my former clients want from me?"

"We know you're dying. We certainly don't want that."

He stares at her. Then laughs. "Me neither, to tell the truth. But life's the journey from A to B, and I'm leaning hard on the second letter."

She smiles wider now. He's not sure if it's his head or... But it looks as if two of her teeth are sinking down over her lip. Extending out like a pair of mechanical pencils.

"You seen a dentist lately?"

"I'll cut to the chase," she says. "We're vampires. And none of us have found better, more secure, more comfortable coffins than yours."

What to make of it, he's not sure! Vampires? Couldn't be. Could it be? Ever the professional he says, "I'm glad to hear you've been enjoying my products."

"We'd like to continue using them, if it's all the same. As such, I would like to offer you the chance to become like us, to become a vampire. To be immortal. If you agree I will bite you myself, and that little tumour in your head will shrink down to nothing in a day."

He blushes at that. At the thought of those red lips and long teeth sinking into his wrinkled old neck.

"I hope that doesn't scare you," she says.

He shakes his head. No, he doesn't scare anymore. Sure, he was scared as all hell when Sally got diagnosed with breast cancer. Now that scared him so bad that nothing since -- when placed in comparison -- has managed to frighten him a hair. His own death? No, that's not fear when compared to losing his reason. His love. His world. All of those other romantic cliches lying around. But there's strong truth in old cliches.

"I appreciate the offer," he says, grabbing his head, holding the migraine, "but if it's all the same, I'm content with not being immortal."

"Content?" she asks, mildly taken back.

"It's been a decade since my wife died and the pain is not so much less than it was. While I'd sure like to keep on ticking in some senses, for some reasons, I don't want that pain anymore." He climbs into a walnut coffin, sits up in it and looks at the vampire.

She sighs. "I see. Then, I'm sorry for wasting your time."

"My pleasure," he says.

She turns to leave, pauses by the door. "The walnut classic is my favourite."

He nods. "I dare say it's mine too."

Once she's gone, he lies back and closes the lid. Lets the stars dance in the darkness.

He thinks about that strange lady. How did she get in, anyway? Door was locked wasn't it? And how did she get out for that matter. He doesn't remember her leaving yet he swears he just watched her go.

God, she looked like a movie star.

Beautiful with a capital b.

A lot like his wife, he thinks. When she was young. Same lipstick shade, same hair. Only the teeth were different.

And then he's wondering if he concocted the whole damn thing.

He thinks he probably did.

And if so, well then maybe not everything about his condition is so bad. Not if it brought her back, even for a moment, even if different. Because to him, for that moment, she was alive.

He takes a deep breath that turns into a yawn, and notices his head isn't hurting so much as usual. "I miss you so damn much," he says. His voice echoes around the coffin as if someone else were saying the words to him.

*****

THE END