Frankie & Formaldehyde

Chapter Two: The Happy Restful Afterlife Home

Frankie sighed over her noodles as steam wafted up from them, her appetite effectively quashed. A foul stench coalesced with the broth into a putrid miasma of soured blood thanks to the close proximity of her co-worker, Shirley, and her stained uniform. Shirley took another large bite of her BBQ tofu meatball sandwich, watery sauce dripping onto her already red-streaked apron.

"I don't know how you survive, eating what little you do," Shirley boomed. Shirley was a large woman, with an equally large voice. There were rumours she had an adam's apple, but these were spawned by prejudice against a woman with a strong will and a cymbal for a voice box, one that clanged with an attention grabbing explosion at every opportunity. She finished her sandwich in two gulps, as if to illustrate her point. "Little birds get eaten by fat cats, that's what they say."

With her massive arms and wide neck and towering height of nearly six feet, Shirley was more rottweiler than feline, complete with a drool line of hickory flavoured BBQ sauce, which she wiped off her chin with the back of her meaty hand. "Can you believe they are increasing our hours again? Greedy assholes."

Frankie paused over her uneaten noodles, the chicken broth growing a skin. More hours? They did almost sixty hours a week as it was and it was killing her. She couldn't do more than that, not with George at home...Being the way he was.

"I can't do it," Frankie quietly said.

"I know what you mean honey. If I could afford it, I'd quit this place in a heartbeat. This place eats people, good, hard working stiffs like us. That damn Head Office grinds us into mince and feeds us to into the goddamned arena every damned day and twice on Sunday." She shook her head, a righteous fury building within her as she looked on Frankie. "Breaks my heart, it do. Here you are, what, sixty-seven? Maybe even older? You supposed to be done your time working, you and George. What did any of this godforsaken business get you but a quick yank back to where you don't belong. What did you get, three years?"

"Something like that," Frankie softly replied.

"Three years of retired bliss before you found your sad ass here."

"I have to work, Shirley," Frankie reminded her. "I told you, George and I are going to lose the house if we don't pay the afterlife tax due on it."

"You know as well as I do that house is paid for ten times over. If you ask me, that bank manager is pulling a fast one, and you wouldn't be the only ones caught in his schemes. You know Martha? Does the night shift? She lost her condo thanks to some 'mortuary premium tax' she supposedly needed to pay. Nothing like that in her mortgage, but that bastard seems to think there's a clause there, even if it was made up well before the whole Osmosis thing was invented. You don't need to tell me it's all a scam, he's laughing his ass off in that locked office of his."

"He's got all the proof that we own it," Frankie said, a familiar feeling of hopelessness taking her over. "He's hidden away the mortgage agreement and I know he's making it up as he goes along. We've tried calling the police, but they weren't interested. Fraud isn't enough of a crime these days, they said. He's holding our house hostage and there's nothing we can do about it." Frankie's spoon settled into her soup, and she pushed the bowl away. "He's forcing us into the city. We can't afford to live there, not with George the way he is, needing his wheelchair and with the cost of his heart medication. My own health isn't what it once was. We can't work in the city, the pace is just too fast, and everything there is so expensive. I never thought it would come to this--I've never wanted to be anywhere but here, in New Hope, until the day I died."

Shirley stewed as she listened to Frankie, her girth spilling over the small plastic chair in the staff room, her legs braced for any sign of war. "Greedy assholes," she muttered. She took a deep breath, and Frankie braced herself. Shirley was about to let loose one of those most terrible of thunders: Her Opinion.