My Life With Death Tales of a modern-day Grim Reaper.

Finding my way out of this place is always a trick. The route in is well marked, with signs every fifty feet or so reading "Morgue" with an arrow indicating which direction the individual in search of the cold storage unit should travel in. On the way out, however, one must read each sign, make the opposite turn and hope one does not miss a sign. The last thing a person would want to do is miss a turn and end up wheeling a cot with a corpse on it into the middle of one of this citadel hospital's many lobbies, one of which, oddly enough, is located a mere one hundred feet down the hall from the morgue. This, in my opinion, is less than ideal placement and has endless potential for a rather upsetting mistake. Now is no time to have no sense of direction.

The typical hospital morgue is nothing more than a large refrigerator filled with shelves of dead bodies. Interestingly, in this particular morgue, there is also an examination area where medical staff perform autopsies in the same room. Cooler to the left, autopsy table in an open room to the right. I always enjoy visiting this hospital morgue for the simple fact that the information of the last body to be examined is left on the large dry erase board. Here I can see the weight of the last person examined and the individual weight of each of their internal organs. (L) and (R) lung, stomach, heart, brain, liver, (L) and (R) kidney, etc. Sometimes is additional information in different colored dry-erase markers notating things such as breast implants, eye donation, irregular organ shape, size or color. It is a bit of a post mortem tell-all, revealing facts about people most of us will never know about one another, no matter how close we are. Unless of course one of us dies and the other happens to see the dry erase board. On occasion, just out of curiosity, I will quickly check the refrigeration unit to see if I can find a toe tag matching the name on the dry erase board. Mr. Jones, it will interest you to know that I am privy to exactly how much your brain weighs. Good day to you, sir. Zip.

Once in the cooler I locate the decedent I am to pick up. Per usual, he is in a standard white plastic hospital body bag. On these cases, there is one toe tag attached to the zipper and another on the toe of the individual. The tag on the outside is to be cut off and placed in the complimentary plastic bag stamped BIOHAZARD then returned to admitting for inspection to ensure that you do in fact have the right person. I check the tag on the outside, unzip the bag and match the outside tag to the inside tag. Ticket number 34298, please claim your prize at the pearly gates. I cut off the outside tag, place it in the plastic baggie, zip it shut, put it in my pocket, transfer the individual from the rack to my cot, zip up and I'm off. All very routine. This takes less than ten minutes if the person is not well above average size and stature.

As I am exiting the morgue, I cannot remember for the life of me whether or not I am to take the second left down the hallway to the right, or take the first right down the second hallway to the left. Years of getting lost tell me to take the simpler route and always stay left if the option is available. So, naturally, I set off to the left. This looks right. However, I realize I have taken a wrong turn only seconds before I literally run into three young nurses coming out of the lobby area. One gasps and covers her face with the collars of her North Face jacket as she presses herself face-first against the brick wall. The two other nurses come to her side and tell her that it's ok, there's nothing to worry about. One nurse shoots me a look that would have killed me were her gun loaded, and the other looks at me as though I've just played the best practical joke of all time. She looks at me for a moment, trying not to laugh. I think that somewhere in her mind, she is half-expecting a co-worker to rip open the bag, jump off the cot and yell something like "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" or "APRIL FOOL'S!" Unfortunately for the young nurse hiding her face, it's only March.

After my thirty second misadventure I correct my route and find my way off the floor and out of the hospital. I laugh to myself as I load the cot into the van. What? It really is funny.

I'm tuned into my favorite radio station, and the woman's voice on my GPS is drowning out a killer song. I cannot decide whether or not to turn the GPS unit down or turn the radio up. I opt for neither, and as she informs me I've missed yet another turn, I turn the radio all the way down and patiently await her instructions. As she is recalculating the route, recalculating the route, recalculating the route, something catches my eye. The digital display on the stock radio has turned from 101.1 to 93.7 on my FM dial. I turn the volume up and hear nothing but what is referred to in the radio industry as "dead air". Seconds of silence interrupted only by moments of harsh static crackle and bleedover from neighboring radio stations. Strange. As I start to turn the volume back down I hear a man's voice come over the radio. A sudden uneasy feeling comes over me. I listen for a moment, wondering if I really heard what I just heard, wondering if it was just some voice from a radio signal close by, a figment of my imagination or more. What I hear next chills me to my core and it is at this time that I fully realize what "hair standing on end" truly means. A voice comes over the radio, broken and barely intelligible at first, then with crystal clarity just long enough to say "I...I just don't know what has happened." The brilliance of the sunny day fades to darkness for a moment as I am gripped by genuine fear. I do not know whether or not I believe in ghosts, heaven, hell, the hereafter or anything other than the certainty of death, but I am terrified and for once in my life I wish I did not have such an active imagination. My mind runs wild and for a split second and my mouth fills with that certain pre-vomit saliva. The air is silent again for several seconds before an old country song comes across the radio waves. It sounds a thousand miles and fifty years away. Marty Robbins. I move the dial to the left. New Country. NPR. I move the dial to the right. Top 40. Hip Hop. Norteno. There is no Marty Robbins playing. I turn the dial back to 93.7...back to the dead air. All is quiet. I drive on in silence for several minutes, listening only to the crackling on the radio and the voice of the GPS instructing me to take turns twenty seconds too late.

This gives new meaning to the term "Dead Air".

I am torn out of a deep sleep by the ear-piercing scream of the work phone. I rub my eyes and try to adjust to the light, a scene I've seen a hundred times before. The clock on the backlit LCD display reads 0400. I flip open the phone and answer. "Hello?" "Hey," the voice on the other end replies. It is my night shift partner Shane. "You've got a call." "Ok," I say, pulling myself up off the floor where I had fallen asleep, "let me get some paper." I shuffle through the mess on my desk for a pen and a piece of paper. A letter from the Social Security Administration regarding my earnings, an empty CRKT knife box from a recent purchase, a broken pair of glasses resolvent from a drunken headbutt to the face, a wireless mouse, junk mail, a military surplus catalog and finally, a shred of paper and a pen. "Go ahead with the info," I say. He relays the information starting with the destination funeral home, the address at which the decedent is to be received, the decedent's name and the point of contact and phone number which I am to call to report an estimated time of arrival. He begins to rattle off a bunch of impertinent information regarding the facility when I interrupt. "I've got the information, I'll get it handled." I need only four things: Name Of Deceased, Funeral Home, Address and ETA #. The rest you can tell me when...well, never.

I straighten my tie, brush the wrinkles out of my jacket and head for the van. Once inside I legibly print the information in oll kapitol (Thomas Jefferson reference) letters and place a call to the facility. "Hendrickson Health, this is Walter." "Hello, Walter, I'm calling from (Name Of Funeral Home) in regards to (Name Of Deceased). I estimate my time of arrival at 4:30 a.m. "Thank you," says Walter (fake name), "I will see you when you arrive." I hang up the phone and drive.

At the facility, I park the van next to the only other car on the lot. I assume this is Walter's personal vehicle. Impertinent observation. I fill in the Time Arrived At Call line, exit the "decedent transport vehicle" (Astro van) and make my way to the door. "Press red button until someone answers the door" the decal lettering says on the plate glass window next to the door. I press the red button and hold it. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds. I'm not going to hold this button down until someone comes from upstairs to answer the door. For all I know it doesn't work. Last number redial. "Hendrickson Health, this is Walter." "Hi, Walter, this is (name omitted) from (Name Of Funeral Home)." "Okay," he says, "I'll be down in just a moment." After a minute or so, an elevator door slides open in the lobby and Walter, all four feet eleven inches of him, comes to the door. He pushes it open and stands aside to let me in. Formal greetings are exchanged. I follow him to the elevator, he presses the button for floor two, and we're off.

The elevator door opens right into a common area. There are recliners, couches, a television, several stuffed animals and colorful pillows. "Welcome To Hendrickson's 'Memory Lane'." A printed sign reads on the far wall. This must be an Alzheimer care facility. I follow Walter out of the elevator, past a semi-conscious woman clutching a stuffed zebra, down the hall to the nurse's station. At the nurse's station I receive a face sheet with information on the decedent. I finish copying the information and take a quick look into the decedent's room to determine how I will go about bringing my cot in for removal.

On my way out, there are now two more elderly women in the commons area, both clutching fleece blankets to their chests, looks of concern and worry on their faces. The do not seem to notice either of us as Walter leads me to the elevator and rides down to the ground floor with me. "Walter," I say to him, "would it be perhaps be possible to divert the women from the commons area when I come back, I do not want to upset them." "Yes, I will do that, thank you for taking that into consideration."

I retrieve my cot and return to the front door, push down the red button, and wait for Walter to come to the door. Back inside. Back to the elevator. I stand back as the door opens to allow Walter to lead the women away for a moment. He takes one by the hand and gently leads her down a hallway. As she is walking away she turns and looks into the elevator, directly at me. "Walter," she says, "who is that man in black, the one in the elevator?" "Oh," he says to her, "that's just a friend of mine, he's here to visit." She shakes her head, worried look still on her face. "No," she says, "no I don't believe he is." Walter looks at me with an apologetic look and puts a hand around the woman's waist, leading her down the hall.

In the room, I turn the light on to see what I am doing. There, in a bed against the opposite wall is another elderly woman, the decedent's room mate. I quickly turn the light off and continue as quietly as possible, as not to wake her. I move silently, methodically donning latex gloves, attaching a toe tag to the deceased, adjusting cot straps and spreading plastic over the cot. I transfer the elderly woman from her bed to the cot, buckle the straps, secure her, zip the cot cover over the cot and exit without making so much as sound enough to even cause the roommate to stir.

In the elevator I ask Walter if her family came to see her before she died. "No," he says, "nobody came." A wave of sadness comes over me as I realize that sometimes, nobody comes for you when you die.

Sometimes I am the only one.

The tempering period is over. After the unfortunate incident with Ms. Jenkins, things seem to be running much more smoothly. I suppose once the worst has happened, there's not much more to worry about. I'd like to apply this to the rest of my life. The worst has happened, now there's nothing to worry about.

My life has been difficult to handle, wrought with trial and tragedy. From an early age loss became a theme in my life. The loss of my childhood. The loss of my innocence. The loss of a pregnancy. The loss of my friends and loved ones to drunk drivers, drowning, cancer, auto accidents, suicides, overdoses and a helicopter crash.

From cleaning up the mess of my best friend's suicide, to saluting under the rotor wash as the remains of the nine friends and brothers that were killed in a tragic accident are being flown in, my memory is peppered with these moments of heartbreak. I revisit these things often. They come creeping in, uninvited.

I do not know how else to process these things. I have no answer as to how to be at peace. I could be a grave robber, the way I keep digging up the past.

It is hard sometimes to see forward when there are such heavy cases hanging as close and fresh in my mind as yesterday, sometimes closer and more memorable.

The talk on the streets is that The Kid is in the wrong business. That he's not cut out for it, that it's depressing him, that it's effecting him negatively. Maybe yes, maybe no. I've always battled with depression, having had so many things go awry and cause instability, depression, suspicion and a sense of impending doom have become quite regular to me. This isn't going to serve me forever. Not for much longer at all. However, I do not feel my job contributes to any negative feelings I may have. I feel quite the opposite is true, that it bolsters my confidence and gives me something to feel positive about. I help people in times of need. I'm a ten minute counselor and hero to people who have just experienced traumatic loss. I respect the dead. I respect the families, even if my entries may lead you to believe the contrary.

There is, of course, a certain degree of defensive mechanism I feel I must adopt in order to get through some of the situations I tend to without losing my mind, without carrying the case home with me, in my head, without losing my composure right there on the scene and grabbing a member of a family not my own and crying. It is difficult. It is so difficult. Thank God(s) for sick senses of humour.

My resolve to remain in this line of work for the entirety of one year is concrete, that is, notwithstanding any catastrophic event which leads to disability, or not at the expense of my sanity.

We don't get instruction manuals for dealing with the things that haunt us. There is no exorcist for these things. At best, peace can be made with the memories. I hope, for my sake, that this is true.

I arrived at work this morning at 6:00 a.m. "Hey," Collins says to me as I am walking up, "I think it's safe to assume you're a little early." "Really?" I ask, puzzled. "What do you mean?" He laughs. "I'm about 99% sure the schedule says you're on tonight, not this morning." "Well, I'll be damned, let me look." I went into the office to review the schedule. Collins is correct. There by my name is 6:00 p.m. Shit. Collins offers me a ride home. I gladly accept.

On the way we review highlights from last nights obesity bloopers reel. I share with him candid details about sounds, smells, etc. He laughs, then shares a story of his own.

"Man, check this shit out," he says, "two days ago I went to the M.E.'s office with Veronica to pick up an autopsy. Dude, I don't know WHAT the fuck happened to this guy. When I got there, I looked into the bag and the guy was SO messed up it didn't even register." "What do you mean?" I ask. "Well," he continues, "I'll tell you". He begins to tell me.

"When I got there, they had the guy in a bag on the exam table. So I went over there to check him for jewelry and whatnot, you know, the usual bullshit. But when I opened the bag, he was so--" he stops abruptly to light and inhale a cigarette, exhales, and continues, "he was so mangled that he didn't even look human. It was so shocking I couldn't even react." "Well, what the hell happened?" I asked, eagerly awaiting the gory details. "First of all," he says, "his head looked like a lit match tip. It was all burned to a crisp and black." "Jeeee-zusss." I say. He goes on in great detail. "Oh, but it gets worse. His brains had boiled and liquefied in his skull and poured out his nose and ears and eye sockets. And as I open the bag more and more, it's like...every body part has sustained a different injury. It was like he had been in a head on collision with a cargo truck that was carrying a great white shark, a refrigerator, a palette of machetes and seven machine guns." I laugh outloud, nearly choking on my saliva on the inhale. He continues. "Yeah, it was like one of those projects where each person works on a section without showing the others. His chest was cut wide open from the autopsy. One of his arms was broken in about fifteen different places and looked like a bendy straw. His legs were all slashed up and mangled, his femurs were stabbing through the skin and one arm had what looked like bullet holes in it." "Good God." I say. "Yeah man, he looked like some kind of demon where if you said his name six times you'd get dragged to the bottom of the ocean by an army of zombies or something." I cannot contain my laughter. I am laughing so hard. What he says next makes me laugh even more. "Veronica said he looked like a Jr. Serial Killer's "Mr. Potato Head", where instead of putting on new noses and smiles and hats he had a bunch of mismatched injuries stuck all over him," I'm losing my shit now. "And to top it all off," he says, "no pun intended, but when they were done with the autopsy they just threw his skull plate and his personal belongings in his chest cavity and put the whole shit in a bag!" "OH my God." I exclaim. "Yeah, I called the funeral home and told them I was putting the toe tag on the outside of the bag, and I wasn't opening it again. I think they knew in advance how bad it was because when I got there they had a tray made up for him already and everything. He literally went from the van, to the tray, right into the cremation machine." I laugh hard again. There is silence for a moment as we drive on.

"You know," Collins says, "sometimes I feel like when we come to work, God is personally punishing us...and every possible absurd and unfair thing in the world happens all in a twelve-hour shift."

I was recently asked "Does everyone get autopsied?" The answer is no. "Well, what determines who gets autopsied? I've always wondered." It's a good question. I'm sure television has lead a lot of us to believe that EVERY single person in the world that dies gets a full investigation, toxicology report and autopsy. This is simply not the case, no pun intended (death worker humour). No jurisdiction has the manpower to conduct investigations and autopsies on every single person that dies. So, what DOES determine who gets an autopsy? Below are a list of criteria and circumstances under which autopsies or investigations are required by law.

The following is taken directly from my county and state's website:

Revised Statute XXX.090 specifies deaths which require investigation:

The medical examiner shall investigate and certify the cause and manner of all human deaths:

* Apparently homicidal, suicidal or occurring under suspicious or
unknown circumstances;
* Resulting from the unlawful use of controlled substances or the use or abuse
of chemicals or toxic agents;
* Occurring while incarcerated in any jail, correction facility or in police
custody;
* Apparently accidental or following an injury;
* By disease, injury or toxic agent during or arising from employment;
* While not under the care of a physician during the period immediately previous
to death;
* Related to disease which might constitute a threat to the public health; or
* In which a human body apparently has been disposed of in an offensive manner.

So, there you have it. If your grandfather fell asleep during Matlock and didn't wake up for his vitamin regiment before The Price Is Right came on, chances are, unless he was poisoned, violently beaten, stabbed to death or shot in the face, he won't be getting an autopsy.

Sorry, Junior.

The moment I walked in the door this morning the First Call phone rang with a removal for my partner and I. We responded promptly, as we always do. It was, for the most part, uneventful, save for the fact we had to lug the body down two flights of stairs and nearly dropped it twice. I always rather dislike carrying bodies down stairs. You're either the guy on top that can't lean back too far because you'll slip and fall, or you're the guy on the bottom that's basically getting pushed down the stairs and trying to keep up with your own feet so you don't tumble down the steps and end up with a corpse on top of you. In short, the case got handled pretty flawlessly and after departing that was the last I saw of my partner for the day. From there I was called to retrieve a body from a large city nearly two hours away. I made it there and back in record time, as I observed my normal routine of hawk-eying for police patrols and recklessly shooting forward, forward, forward faster than a speeding bullet. Case closed. Off to the next one.

No sooner did I finish my long distance case, was I called away to a small town an hour north of the office. I made it there in record time, as I observed my normal routine of hawk-eying for police patrols and speeding forward, forward, forward faster than a bullet. I arrived at the Coroner's office to have him examine some paperwork and sign a death certificate. As I sat and waited in his office I took note of interesting things about the room. Several plaques and certificates with his name in gold, in black ink, in cursive, in calligraphy. A black shirt with yellow lettering that read "LAST RESPONDER". Very clever. Books, several books with titles like "Crime Scene Investigator's Handbook", "First Responders", "The Merck Manual", "Blood Spatter Evidence Case Files". Et cetera. At each end of the bookshelf stood decorative resin-cast statues of Anubis, the Egyptian god of mummification, the dead and the afterlife. Pictures of skulls, famous death-themed art. A place I could really hang around. Within a few moments he returned with things signed in triplicate, stamped, dated, investigated, on and on. I took the death certificate and departed the Coroner's office en route to the county health department to have it filed. Everything went off without a hitch. The day is looking tits, gov. The sun is shining, the air is warm, and before I know it, I've handled all my cases and am back at base with a full tank of gas thirty minutes before my shift will come to an end. This has been the perfect day.

Almost.

At 17:40 (that's 5:40 p.m.), twenty minutes before I am to close out what is my first perfectly completed day, I receive a call. I take the information and depart. I am upset.

I am driving across a river into a neighboring state to retrieve a body from a hospice care center. A woman by the name of Nanda Jenkins. This is not her real name, but it's close enough. I arrive at the hospice care facility right at my estimated time of arrival. My paperwork is in order, the toe tag is completed and ready to go, all I have left to do now is meet with the nurses and take one Ms. Jenkins into my care, that I may deliver her to her final resting place.

Inside, I meet with Laura. She is sweet, matronly, willing to help. "Right this way," she says, and leads me down a hallway to room number 117, where Ms. Nanda Jenkins awaits. "Oh," the nurse says, stopping in the doorway to turn to me, "she's a rather large woman." I love the way this very minute detail has been overlooked up to this point, at which time it has barely been glossed over. "Ok," I reply, "I will step out and have someone join me to assist, this may take some time." I feign as though I am going to leave to call someone in when she stops me and says, "Well...I guess myself and some of the nurses could help." God forbid, love. I wouldn't dream of putting you out. Bless your soul. I am ever so gracious, miss. May we continue? Thank you, love. If there's one thing people like less than getting involved, it's waiting around. Impatience trumps inactivity every time. Never bet against black. I've said this before.

Within no time we've smoothly transitioned Ms. Jenkins from her bed onto the cot and within no time I've got her secured and ready to be transported. As of right now, she is the most agreeable three hundred plus pound woman I've had the pleasure of working with all day. The other ones in the room, the living ones, I find much less agreeable, as I suspect they are angry lesbians and hate me. All the better.

As I exit, I notice that one of the legs of the cot is not operating as it should, so I make haste to get my case loaded into the van. I am relieved when the cot withstands the weight and loads smoothly, as it should. Ms. Jenkins secure, I fill in the "TIME DEPARTED" line on my paperwork and pull away, en route to the cremation center where she is to be interred.

I arrive at the cremation center mere minutes later and step out of the van to raise the garage door of the receiving bay while I sing a tune to myself. The door goes up, the van goes in, the door goes down. I sing this to myself in a rather cheery mood as I walk around to the back of the van, keys in hand, to unlock and open the rear gate. "Hello, Ms. Jenkins," I say as I open the rear gate and struggle with the cot. Yanking, pulling, shaking. Phew. I notice as I am pulling the cot out of the van that one of the legs is again acting strangely. Not quite clicking into place where it should be? I can't quite put my finger on what is going on with it. It seems to be rolling fine. Nevermind that, I'm almost done, I'll deal with it when I get back to the shop. It is now 18:35. I should be out of here and on the road by 19:00.

I see that the cremationist has set out an extra large press-board tray for Ms. Jenkins, as opposed to the standard-sized thick cardboard trays. It is against the wall where it should be. This makes for an easy transfer. What you do is lower your cot a couple clicks at each end to match the height of the tray, then just push the person off the cot onto the cremation tray. It works for people who weigh 150 pounds. Why should it not work for someone who weighs three hundred? In the famous last words of Steve Irwin, "Let's go in for a closer look". R.I.P. Steve Irwin. We miss you.

"Horrorshow" is a term coined by Anthony Burgess' character Alex in the 1962 novel "A Clockwork Orange". It is used to describe scenes of ultra-violence and horrific events such as, but not limited to, murder. Conversely it is used to denote something that is well and good, a good time. For all intents and purposes of this exercise let the aforementioned term stand for the former definition, something that is horrific.

I click each end down two notches. This brings me just level with the cremation tray, which is situated upon a rolling frame known as a "Church Truck". The wheels are locked, it's stable. Here we go. One, for the might with which we fight. Two for the way we tie our shoes. Three, for, oh fuck. Horrorshow. As I push, in slow motion, both the cot and the tray begin to tip, each shouldering half the load on half their respective surfaces. The cot tips, the tray tips, both surfaces are now raised in a "V" shape as all three hundred pounds of Ms. Jenkins slips right through the cracks and crashes to the floor with a sickening smack. My stomach wrenches. My heart drops to the pit of me. I fight back the urge to vomit. I am sickened through and through. I call my partner. "Holy fuck man you gotta come help me I just fuckin' dropped someone." Good news. He's out on a call with an hour turnaround time, which means at best, I'll be here for an hour waiting. There has got to be a way to handle this on my own. Suddenly, I remember that in my van I have a rigid backboard for just such occasions.

I retrieve the backboard from the van and work frantically to get it under Ms. Jenkins. Once secured, I am sweating profusely. This, of course, is the night that all three cremation burners are running. It is about ninety degrees in this bay and I'm in a full suit. No. No, thank you. I'm quite alright as it is. I have devised a scheme to place one end at a time, the backboard back onto the cot to give another go 'round at getting Ms. Jenkins into the cremation tray. This could work. I lift and place first the feet and leg end of the board onto the cot. It stays. I then walk around to the heavier head end and lift...and just like that she is back on the cot. Thank God. Now. Do I wait another hour for assistance, or do I once again attempt to transfer her from the cot to the cremation tray? To wait for help, turn to page 66. To continue without assistance, read on.

I decide to continue without assistance. What could possibly go wrong? I have since secured Ms. Jenkins back onto the cot using the installed straps, which are really just glorified seatbelts for dead people. She is once again at cremation tray height. This time, I have decided to try to offload using the end-to-end technique, which, with a one hundred and fifty pound person works perfectly. This however, did not. Let me explain.

I begin by standing at the head end and pushing firmly on her shoulders. She slides down slowly. First her feet touch the tray, then her calves, then her upper legs...hey, this is really working. I now have her lower half and part of her upper half onto the tray when I hear a strange sound. *Ka-TING*. Remember the cot leg I was worrying about earlier? Well, it has--under the weight--snapped, collapsing the cot which has literally shot out from under the tray and from under Ms. Nanda Jeknins. The whole mechanism clatters, creaks and bangs across the floor, tips and falls over just inches out of my reach. I am left holding the tray and Ms. Jenkins with my hands. I look down at her, she is hanging limply over the side. The tray, off-balanced and too heavy at this end, begins to tip toward me. I manage to wedge my leg under the whole mess and retrieve my phone from my pocket. I am holding in one hand a three hundred pound woman, and in the other a cellular telephone. I dial for help. Nobody is available. Nobody is available. Nobody is available. I throw the phone to the ground. In an act of adrenaline-fueled strength and fear I've only ever heard about--the kind of story where someone lifts a car off a crushed child--I lift the tray with both hands above my head and shake it in hopes of shimmying Ms. Jenkins down into position. I try this several times, it does not work. After nearly a minute my adrenaline rush is depleted and I have no choice but to let go and again send Ms. Nanda Jenkins, Church Truck, tray and all, go toppling to the floor. This is not like dropping a bowl of cookie dough. This is like dropping a bowl of cookie dough, the mixer, all the utensils and then having the cabinets fall off the wall onto the pile. This is the worst possible scenario and my nightmare, and it's happening right now.

Ms. Nanda Jenkins lies on the floor, face down. I am dripping sweat and shaking, sick to my stomach and somehow cold. I have no cigarettes. I decided to quit a couple days ago. Big mistake. I sit down in a slump next to her dead body, staring at it. "I quit, I quit, I quit," I say to myself, over and over in different volumes, varying tones and inflections, practicing for tomorrow when I will meet with my boss.

Here we sit. Today is my Monday.

I am currently writing two more "episodes" about my life which I will be releasing soon. In the meanwhile, some security issues were brought to my attention by a friend. As a result, I've had to make my profile completely private so it does not show up in search results and I've had to do away with my Twitter account, which I know many of you enjoyed. I apologize, but security is of the utmost importance at this time, as my job and livelihood depend on my anonymity.

I would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone that follows, especially those of you in the U.S., Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Thank you also to everyone else, your support and interest in this project of mine means a lot to me.

There is more to come, I promise. Perhaps as soon as tonight.

Yours truly,

My Life With Death
mylifewithdeath@gmail.com