No Stranger To Death He looked at the kid lying on his wooden embalming table. Thomas was no stranger to death, and yet it always startled him to see a face so young gone so quickly. The War had provided him with enough young "patients" and horrific memories that still haunted him to this day. His nose had long since become used to the smells of death, but the sights were more difficult to numb yourself towards.
Reaching up with one hand, he carefully brought the pliers up towards the bullet wound near his left temple, digging carefully through cold flesh that no longer argued with him. The difference between a live patient and preparing the dead was the reflex reactions of their muscles, and working on the dead was always physically easier. It only took him moments to find the bullet, carefully extracting it--and consequently a bit of skull and brain--and sitting it in the bowl nearby with the pliers. Next he brought a washcloth up and began to clean the wound. Blood oozed but didn't pour too badly--like many of the young soldiers he'd worked on during the War, this kid had nearly bled out completely. Now the red simply oozed leisurely from the wound like molasses. Once it was properly cleaned, he began the task of sewing it shut. Practiced hands had this completed within minutes, and he once more brought the washcloth up to clean the blood that had trickled out slowly.
He looked over the dead man's face for a moment, then reached out with gentle hands to manipulate his flesh. Muscles that had relaxed at the moment of death listened to his silent commands and began to set in such a way that the boy almost appeared to be sleeping. Almost. One could never quite get the look of life back into a body, but Thomas had gotten close before.
A few hours later with the corpse properly embalmed and the smell of chemicals heavy in the air, he began to dress the young man again. First pants, then his shirt and shoes, and finally the hat. The task of carrying him into the toe-pincher casket nearby wasn't difficult at all given the boy's age and the amount of embalming that had been done. The chemicals of his day hardened the flesh enough to make the corpse almost a statue, which made placing him within the wooden casket easy to do.
Taking a step back, Thomas sighed as he looked over his handiwork. It was well done, he would give himself that, but Jesus he hated working on someone so young. The boy's mother would be in to see him in a few hours, and Thomas could only hope he'd prepared the corpse enough for her to view it.