Remember To Die

Spotting Archibald, Darling improved her posture and grinned, coquettish. He realized she did fancy him — and would have felt elated if not for the three elderly members of the clan with shriveled hands, blemished visages, strands of white hair, perched in a row on a beige couch. This moldy trio of statues reminded Arch of the wraith clawing at the Harpsichord.

Scuffing sounds. Grammy arrived, ghostly in a bedraggled gown, head balanced on her neck, lumbering to a crowded sofa. She plopped herself into the line of grandparents, the four of them squashed, wriggling for space.

The porch steps swam. Temporary pangs afflicted his abdomen. Wooziness swelled, an ocean of qualms. He was salvaged from drowning by a whinny. Irma checked his palms, sniffing eagerly, and grunted. “Sorry, no carrots.” The horse craved them. She should have been a rabbit, he would jest. Stroking her flank, Arch plodded to the wagon’s rear.

He was bereft of humor as well. A coward, he clambered inside the Hearse and sagged against it, perspiring. His pulse throbbed with the cadence of a Racehorse at a gallop, but his blood surged like a glacial Mountain Stream. “I can do this,” he vowed. “Whatever becomes of me.”

How? his compunction challenged. How could he tread into that den of frights when his legs were numb with paralysis?

Archibald surveyed the family. An eerie bunch, he concluded. It was as if they had no concept of the Grave and recognized little distinction between the Living and the Dead. He resolved to address this issue in hopes of clarifying. “Ahem. In case you are unaware, photos with deceased individuals are referred to as Memento Mori. That’s Latin for ‛Remember to die.’ A reminder we are mortal. It is our nature to lie in the soil. We must all of us perish and wither to dust.”

“Rather morbid, don’t you think?” sneered Adelaide.

“It is but a fact of existence, Madam.”

“Pah! Don’t tell us how to live. Or die,” protested the Patriarch.

“I love it. I think it’s magnificent. So macabre!” Darling raved. “I’m giddy with anticipation!”

“Take the Portrait. We ain’t getting any younger. Or less ripe,” goaded Prosper, the Cigar Stub clamped in yellowed ivories.

It had touched him again with those familiar icy fingers around his heart. A morose pall arose, frostier, murkier than cemetery vapors seeping out of graves. Like a shroud embracing a corpse, the death of a loved one engulfed him.

But this time was different. He was in wonder at the gift bestowed when he thought the world had been pulled once more from below his feet.

Clutching a letter, he glanced up to watch a young lady pass the window. She was inordinately attractive; maybe that was why he found himself entranced. He prayed she would halt so he could go on staring. To his utter amazement, she did pause at the door as if acknowledging his gaze, then pushed it to enter the Studio. Archibald straightened abruptly, a rigid chair crashing behind him, the letter crumpled in a fist.

“Are you lost?” He blurted the question, assuming she must be. A placard inside the door’s panes of glass exhibited a handwritten announcement spelling CLOSED FOR BUSINESS DUE TO ILLNESS, visible to the street.

“I’m sorry?” She blinked at him shyly.

Archibald blinked in response. An awkward silence screamed in his ears, blaring at him to speak. “I just meant . . .” He cleared a throat congested by sadness and anxiety. “. . . perhaps you are in search of another enterprise. Other than this one.”

She was unfashionably hatless and gloveless. Clasping a folded Parasol, brunette hair pinned up, the fetching maiden was garbed in a two-piece dress of a green that matched her eyes over layers of Corset, Petticoat — and whatever else females wore beneath the surface. He blinked away the rude notion.

“Are you the Photographer?” she inquired.

He felt uncertain how to answer. She wasn’t lost. How peculiar. He dwelt on an adequate reply, his mind slower than usual. “I suppose I am. What brings you here, if I may be so bold?”

“You may. My family requires your services at our home. We’re in need of a Portrait.”

The ethereal girl’s face had the whitest shade conceivable, virtually translucent. Lips were stained by cherries, her nails tinted a darker red. They couldn’t be painted. Only hussies and Performers did that. Feminine, proper, she exuded an aura of mystery. The clod was mesmerized . . . in a dream or fugue.

“Sir?” She interrupted his reverie. “Is anything the matter?”

He came to his senses. “On the contrary. It is simply that I am not — I have never — This would be my first solo undertaking. Of that sort.”

“I beg your pardon?” He had confused her with his stammering.

“I am not very experienced. Upon my own, that is. Two weeks ago I was an Apprentice. I trained with the late Master Sefton in his various commissions for approximately a decade. He succumbed to the Fever like many wretched souls. It was all terribly sudden.”

“Yes, I can imagine.” Her features twisted to a grotesque caricature.

A pungent reek, the scent of decay tickled the man’s nostrils and was gone. He gasped in surprise.

“You were saying?” Her countenance was normal.

It must be the funeral stench abiding, he reasoned. The Human Anatomy became rank, displayed for days while Final Respects were paid. He could not forget that particular odor, committed like an heirloom to memory.