GONE & LONG FORGOTTEN - THE END?

continued from The Beginning

Feeling squeamish, I quickly drop the pendant and step back from the shelf.  Steeling myself, I move down a few shelves and check the contents of some of the other boxes and find pretty much the same stuff for each forgotten loved one.  I hear muffled noises in the distance and I crane my neck to its fullest extent to see over the forest of shelves.  Is Joe back already?  Nope, no one there.  Why, then had I heard what sounded like footsteps?  A goose walks over my grave and I shiver.

* * *

Intent on organizing these abandoned souls so that they can be packed up quickly when Joe gets back with the boxes (funny, a thought pops into my head – boxes within boxes), I quickly develop a rhythm.  First I take out the photo, find the slip of paper with the name and address, smooth it out and prop it against the picture.  Then I take a picture of the picture, with my agonizingly-slow cell phone.  I give my head a shake in frustration and make a mental note to myself – Self, buy a new cell phone.

I whiz along, despite the tedious, time-consuming process and breathe in mightily when I hear the nearby garage-style door go up with a big bang.  Joe’s really back this time.

As he strides toward me, his lop-sided grin shines through the gloom and I feel my heart give a twinge.  My tummy starts doing a little flip-flop and I can’t help but smile big, right back at him.

Joe gives me a wonderful hug and brushes his lips across my cheek, then murmurs into my shell-shaped ear, “So, where do you want all the boxes, darlin’?”

It takes me a few seconds to process this sweet nothing, blinking in realization that Joe’s all business, with a touch of honey.  “Right here, beside me, please.  It’s a good place to start.  Oh, and look what I found.  Every box should have one.”  I hold up the narrow piece of paper with the deceased’s info on it and dangle it in front of face.  His smoky, dark-blue eyes track the back and forth movement of the paper for a few seconds and then slide into cross-eyed-ness.  Funny!  He’s doing it on purpose. 

I put my fish-face on - purse my lips out like a kissing gourami and cross my eyes as far as they would go.  I lightly brush my rucked-up lips across the top his nose.  Can’t waste a pucker, don’t you know!  Joe laughs and heads back to his pickup for more supplies.  Sighing mightily and unscrunching my face, I turn back to my shooting of the dead.  Hmm, sounds like a good title for a TV show.

There’s so much to do and so little time left to do it. 

Looking at the amount of boxes I had managed to set-up and photograph, I realize that at this pace, by the time I finish, I could be very, very old or even reduced to gray dust, in a flat box with my picture and a pendant in it.

I put out a call to all my friends in a group e-mail and beg for help – anyone, everyone and bring your friends too.  All the beer and pizza you can swallow but only after the job is done.

Oh boy!  I do a fast check on my credit 
card balance and sigh with relief, when I see that I could swing about $400.00 at the new Three-for-One Pizza joint and, of course, the beverage of choice to wash it down - beer.  I’m sure that 3-for-one will consider me their best customer after I place my order.  The beer store already does. 

I give but a fleeting thought about the possible myocardial infarction that Bruce’s executor might experience after getting my boxful (I thought I’d use one of the flat empties), of receipts to be reimbursed. Then I shrug and pucker up the ole lips and blow a very loud raspberry! 

Amazingly, about forty-five of my nearest and dearest friends and their nearest and dearest friends show up, cell phones in hand and at the ready.  I explain what needs to be done and pass my cell around so that people will know how to frame the shot.  I feel like a stewardess explaining the life vest and emergency exit procedures, as I demonstrate the placement of the slip of paper against the photograph.  Then we divvy up the sections and everyone gets down to the job.  We all work at a fever pitch, swilling water and chomping apples from the big red box of Royal Gala I had sent Joe out to buy.  Good thing his credit card had some room to spare.

We work in almost total silence but not really, as people bounce, jounce and kind of sway to inaudible music in their ear-buds.  Some hum to the music, some bee-bop and some just twitch.  The power of the rhythm is amazing.

Joe and I meet by accident in one of the furthest corners of the warehouse and manage to grab a quick hug.  Then, with a wicked grin, his teeth startling white in the gloom, he saunters off to his assigned section once more. 

I move deeper into the murkiness and pause to listen.  Is that the small door beside the big roll-up loading dock door, creaking open?  I think my ears will permanently freeze in the forward-leaning position, I’m listening so hard.

Another creak has me sprinting for the small entrance door and I get there just in time to see it close all the way shut.  There’s no one inside.  I head straight for the door and bang it open so hard, it hits the battered siding with a hollow thump.  My head and eyes on swivel, I scan the surrounding area of forest and marshland directly behind the dilapidated warehouse.

Cattails rustle about twenty yards away and I flat-out sprint mindlessly in their direction.  My white sneakers are soon blackened and wet with swamp water and a dark, musky odour reaches my nose, which makes me sneeze.  I flounder on, foolishly.  I will catch whoever has been spying on me!

I see a flash of a white and navy-blue checkered shirt and run faster, which I didn’t think possible.  Just as I was giving up hope of catching the fleet-footed runner, I hear a thud, then a splash and a yelp of pain, as Checkered Shirt goes down hard, face first in the stinky bog.

Checkered Shirt rises from the swamp with a disgusted shout and lets out a string of expletives, which would make a longshoreman proud. 

Holy shit!  My green eyes bug out of my brunette head and I start hyperventilating. 

From what I was told later, after I came to, my now very un-dead and still ex-husband, Walter, helped pick me up and carry me into his warehouse of long forgotten souls.  There I lay on one of the few empty shelves, until I manage to sit up.  

Where in the hell has the bastard been for fifteen years?