We buried my little brother inside a condom. Mom was upset; she didn’t appreciate the philosophy behind my work. After the funeral, I was ousted from the house. I moved to a small Turkish island in the Mediterranean with my girlfriend to keep making coffins. Grandpa was originally from there. He always talked well about the place.
Many haven’t heard of the recent coffin-designing practices that came out of Ghana, where the dead are buried inside a fantasy coffin shaped after something meaningful that captures them. Dream cars, Coca-Cola bottles, Karl Marx, well-paying job contracts, and Marlboro cigarette packs, were among the most commonly sold designs I built. For the customers, it was like kids at a bakery picking out a birthday cake, flipping through a catalog of designs. In this case, families usually made the choices. That took the fun out of it. Suicides were the best, especially the lonely ones. I got to use my artistic freedom. And they were rising lately, even though it wasn’t the peak season yet. I assumed it was the lack of good TV.
Just a few weeks back, there was that one exhibitionist. His thing was to pretend it was an accident whenever he flashed families at the door while delivering pizzas. He’d pocket the tip money, his pants would drop, nothing underneath. Then he’d stare at the customer, soaking in their reaction, as he apologized repeatedly and pulled his pants up. Later he’d get off to it, imagining some secret excitement on the victims’ part.
Word got around. Someone filmed him mid-act. He killed himself. No family.
I made his casket out of tempered glass. Went to the beach, asked strangers for their best shocked expressions, like that famous scream painting, and photographed them. Told them it was for charity. I glued their faces all over his coffin. All those eyes would watch him until there was nothing left to see. It was the least I could do for him.
Every one of these deaths comes with a detail: Kids who suffocate themselves while masturbating; teenagers, like my little brother, who make life plans ten years ahead and then die ten days later from a random illness; lonely souls who melt down and leak to the unit below after weeks with no visitors except the Mediterranean heat.
I made sure to implement these elements into my work. Deaths shape the coffin more than anything.
***
It said somewhere that a mathematician invented the coordinate system after watching a fly crawl across the ceiling from his bed. A silverfish on my ceiling, too, recently revealed the importance of its position to me. For years, I woke up to the rooster-like screams of my girlfriend and, still half-asleep, killed every silverfish she spotted on the ceiling. It was when she went away to Spain, for a reason I cannot recall right now, that I took my time to watch this one tiny silverfish on my ceiling. I noticed, after careful observation, that it always positioned itself where my upstairs neighbor, Madeline, stayed in her room. When she moved, it would move too, in sudden, fish-like discontinuous bursts. When she left her room, it would linger in the right corner of my ceiling, where her door would have been above. Like a loyal dog waiting at the entrance, it waited for her. For weeks, I listened to her footsteps and hummings to confirm my findings. When my girlfriend returned a month later, I hid the silverfish under my bed and fed it pages from my diary that I wanted gone. Occasionally, I had to use Madeline’s notes as treats. And whenever my girlfriend left the house during the day, I freed the silverfish. I watched it climb back to the ceiling and find Madeline. As I sketched coffins in my notebook, we watched her together. I smoked, and it chewed on the ashes later.
Not much besides Madeline mattered then. As I lay in bed, crunching sunflower seeds, I watched her movements for hours through the silverfish. I decided it would be nice to gift her a coffin. Everybody needed one more than they thought.
***
She was seductive. She liked to talk about things that mattered. That was all I knew, not even her measurements. I needed more to complete her coffin. I thought visiting the diary store might help.
The sun made me dizzy on the way. I saw locals’ rubber souls melting, leaking into the cracks of the cobblestones. I made sure to toss the shells of sunflower seeds into the gaps so they would have something to nibble. Shells were the tastiest part; sometimes I would swallow them whole, without even crunching.
I glanced around, trying to find where the unbearable noise of crickets suffering the heat came from. There was nothing around but wooden houses leaning toward one another, pressing in on the cobblestone road. Then, I saw one, or something like one. It stood by a hawker cart, roasting chestnuts, staring at me with large, dark eyes. Its vocal sacs swelled and shrank as it chirped. I stared at the ground to avoid tension.
Almost every window shutter on the street snapped open as if I were a strong wind passing through. More of them peered out, locals with cricket heads, all chirping, all surveying me and doing nothing else. I kept staring at the ground until I felt wetness on my face. A local with a camel’s head and the spiral shell of a snail had spat on my temple. The phlegm was salty, coppery. I wiped it off and stared at it. “Spit on his face, he thanks God for the rain,” it read. The letters were blurry, hard to make out, so I couldn’t be sure. I had no clue what it meant. Maybe it was lost in translation.
***
“For something that’s only twenty-one grams, the soul is a heavy thing to carry, isn’t it, coffinmaker?” Orhan asked, flipping his coffee cup onto the saucer after a final sip.
I nodded, cracking open a sunflower seed.
When I first arrived on the island, I wanted to buy a diary from his run-down shop. He told me he only sold used ones. I asked why anyone would want to write in a used diary. He laughed. “American only wants to write. ‘Read’ is the first command in the Quran. First, learn to read,” he said.
At first, it seemed odd that people here were interested in reading the confessions of strangers. Eventually, I developed a taste for these unpublished writings. They did not carry the sickly smell of books printed for the general public, the kind found in libraries. Like my coffins, they were all distinctive and buried. They were unprocessed secrets, unworthy of the public.
“Be careful with this one,” Orhan said, pointing to the diary covered with Hello Kitty stickers I placed on the counter. “Not good. Very dangerous.”
It was Madeline’s. I recognized her writing. It was one of the recently donated, but he must have already read it. He read every diary left there, anonymously dropped off or not. He believed everyone deserved to be read, even those who wrote for no one. I always thought he was almost interesting. Tears welled up in his eyes once I left the shop.
***
A report about Caspian, written by a local to the island prosecutor, translated:
It would have made everyone happier if he had been buried alive in one of the coffins he built. People trusted this man with their dead, the most special person in their lives, yet he turned them into abhorrent jokes he mockingly calls “art pieces.” Nobody wants to see their loved ones buried in the coffins he creates. I saw with my own eyes that he sent a coffin shaped like an iPad for my friend’s little son, who died of cancer. “They do it in Ghana,” he answered to justify his crimes when the island folk confronted him. We don’t know what to do about the rest of his perverse behavior either. He scatters sunflower seed shells all over the cobblestone roads. They are impossible to pick out from the cracks. I hope you have the power to lock this deranged American in a mental hospital before someone does something regrettable.
Sincerely,
O. D.
Who could ‘O.D.’ be? I knew almost nobody’s surname on the island. It was a hopeless search. I didn’t expect to find such records about me in Madeline’s diary. The locals must have hated me. Back in the States, they might have accepted me as an artist, but what good was that if I could not even practice my art? There, coffins were already machine-made for much cheaper. At least here, people still needed my art.
***
When I got home, heavy coughing came from the bedroom. My girlfriend was under a local. He was thrusting hard, breathing deeply, coughing on her from time to time. I watched until my girlfriend noticed me. She gasped. For some reason, she pulled the blanket over herself, but I waved them off so they wouldn’t worry about me. After closing the door I went to get some water.
It was strange that the local had the head of a camel. It made me wonder if he was the same one who had spat on me earlier. I sat on the couch in the living room, waiting for them to finish. I was happy about hiding the silverfish before I left the house. I had an intuition that the camel wouldn’t get along with it, just like my girlfriend.
***
Madeline’s diary surprised me. Though we had never met in person, she knew I would read the whole thing, just as I had read her notes. A recent entry caught my eye. She had already sensed my intentions.
Dear Caspian,
I suspect that you are interested in designing a coffin for me, even though I’m still alive. It would be insincere if I said I was not intrigued by this odd hobby of yours, where you tailor coffins specific to the individual so that they may rest in them forever with a purpose. Loved ones, material goals, friends, none of those earthly beauties matter to you anymore. So you want to anchor yourself to these coffins, these unchanging beauties instead—so much so that locals spitting on you every day as they feel like you spit on them by making art out of death does not bother you a bit; in fact, nothing bothers you except your endless search for what does not change.
But you see, this is where we have a problem with my coffin: I’m alive. How can you tailor something unchanging for someone who still has life and changes ahead of them, things that you cannot stand? So perhaps I must die. Or better, I must agree to bury myself alive in your coffin. Now that you have agreed to design coffins for me, these ideas will haunt you eventually. I saw traces of them in your diary, seeds of a fantasy taking root.
Why see everything around you inside a coffin? What pleasure remains in things if they are locked in a box forever? Everything must taste like water to you. I will not debate you on the futility of putting such effort into these obscene art pieces that are not even meant for the public eye, buried out of sight. I’m aware you lack reasoning. That also explains the coffins you build; the lizards and frogs you claim to have seen growing from olive trees. Partly because I sympathize with your madness, and partly because I accept that we all pursue our own version of beauty, I agree to be buried alive. I can no longer live with the fear of running from you, never knowing when you will appear before me with your mesmerizing boyish aura suddenly shifting, like in those Gestalt illusions, into an ugly creep’s, as tends to be the case with men.
“His condition likely results from being touched as a kid,” my psychoanalyst said about you. But he once told me that women knit because they want to cover their genitals out of shame, so I cannot take him too seriously.
Regardless, I believe you are fixated on me because I remind you of your mother. Unlike your real mother, who rejected your art, the one you are trying to replace, I am a mother who feeds it.
Now that you have read everything, you are aware of my sins. I promise I only killed evil, but the need to feed you, to feed your coffins, pushed me to kill more. You were like a dangerous pet I kept. It was a guilty pleasure to see you happy.
I fear no matter how many more I give you, you will always come for me, the mother. I watched you from a distance and nourished you in secret, but I can no longer keep you under control.
You do not need to leave your gifts at my door anymore. Bring the next one in. Who knows, maybe you will get to bury me this time, your mother, in a coffin you designed. It depends on my mood. I might even have sex with you.
The key is under the doormat.
Sincerely,
M.D.
***
Once my girlfriend left, I freed the silverfish. It kept circling in the middle of the ceiling. I had never seen that before. Madeline had to be home. She usually worked at that hour, but I trusted the silverfish. It wasn’t a bad time to deliver the order she had requested last time. It would be the final one.
I pushed the ottoman to the elevator. It was too heavy to carry. I was so used to leaving my gifts at her door that I almost forgot I was supposed to bring this one inside.
As soon as I stepped in, they rushed toward me, flapping weakly. Pigeon-headed locals. Their wings were broken. They screamed as they ran past me. By the time I opened my eyes, they were gone from the unit, as if I had freed them from a cage.
The unit was empty. The living room had only white walls and a local standing stiff in the middle, shaped like a chair. I had recently gifted it to her. I placed the ottoman beside it. They complimented each other.
The silverfish had been wrong. Her bedroom was empty as well. There was a desk and a local painted entirely white, blending into the wall it was glued to, a chameleon type. Those were not from me. The massage chair and bed were my designs. She had paid for those.
On the windowsill, I noticed a pair of binoculars. She must have been watching my unit through the reflection of the opposing apartment. There was a stethoscope on the desk. I had not expected her to be spying on me.
Suddenly, something got torn apart, ripped violently. It grew louder, scratching, peeling. I looked up, but it wasn’t coming from above. Then, a whimpering behind me.
I checked the unit, but nothing stood out. I opened the window, just to see if anyone was down there. By the time I could focus, a local boy was already staring up at me. Our eyes met. He was sucking on roasted chestnuts. It didn’t interest me.
I sank into Madeline’s bed with sunflower seeds in my palm. It felt hollow. The pigeons inside it had hatched out somehow. Their feathers lay scattered around the unit. One of my favourite pieces, destroyed just like that.
***
After a few hours, Madeline arrived. She was young, or at least the plaid skirt she wore made it seem that way. I should have guessed from all that strange I’m your mother talk. Her chest was flat, her nipples visible beneath the white shirt.
I wasn’t that excited to see her. She sat on the massage chair, spreading her legs to fit them into the rests. Her striped underwear had a tiny bow on it.
“Your house is flaking,” I told her. “You didn’t take care of my pieces like you promised. I don’t like it when my coffins change, let alone get destroyed.”
“I thought you knew this place was built to rot, ” she said, applying her cherry lip balm. “That’s what makes it bearable.”
I cracked a sunflower seed and closed my eyes, resting on the bed.
“Did you even try turning on the massage chair yet?” I asked.
“You’re supposed to turn it on? It started by itself a few times.”
“Must be a malfunction,” I said. “Press the button on the side.”
The chair started vibrating.
“It’s nice,” she responded, turning it off right after.
“Yeah, it took me a while to set that up,” I said.
There was a pause. I cracked open another seed. My lips were feeling too salty. I needed some water.
Suddenly, she started screaming, dropping to the ground. I sat up. A wide pupil bulged from between the torn leather of the massage chair.
A man was carving his way out, a knife trembling in his hand. He fought hard to get out. It was almost like the chair was giving birth to him. He must have been a premature one.
The whole thing was depressing. I watched as Madeline screamed and cursed him. She pressed against the wall, painting it red, holding her wound. When he finally carved his way out of his coffin, he gasped for air, his penis lost in his pubic hair.
Our eyes met.
After a few deep breaths, he fled, hunched over, limping, whimpering, barely holding onto the knife.
“I didn’t know I was putting the half-alive into my coffins,” I said, cracking a sunflower seed. “That would change the whole design. And I don’t want to get into trouble with the law, either.”
“I was sure he was dead,” Madeline said, clenching her teeth. “Don’t worry. He’s convicted. Assuming he didn’t lie in his own diary, he can’t go to the police. If anyone’s in trouble here, it’s me.”
“You mentioned he’s a pervert in one of your notes,” I said. “That’s why I made his coffin a massage chair.”
She sighed. “Can you just bring me some wine? I need it for the pain.”
Her kitchen was full of empty bottles. Only one remained.
Once I brought it, she held it out. “Take a sip,” she said. ‘Natural Aegean Grape,’ the label read. I had seen that phrase in her diary many times. She was trying to kill me.
I took the bottle and placed it on the desk. She didn’t react. Her acting was decent.
“Do you think I’m evil?” I asked.
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
“Would you ever kill me?”
“Yes,” she replied. “You first, then myself. We’re like exotic animals that can’t survive here.”
I cracked open a sunflower seed.
“The locals are planning to kill you anyway,” she said, taking a sunflower seed from my palm. “Nothing you or I can do.”
I offered to treat her wound, but she waved me off. So I asked if she would trust me with her burial.
“You aren’t that different from them,” she said, staring at the ceiling. “Your coffins are like their minds, parasites to this world. Oh, men…this endless grasping. All beauty slips away in your attempt to capture. You will never own me.” She spat on me. I wasn’t offended. She was talking gibberish, trying to sound poetic. Her hands shook. It was sad to see her like that.
“Why do you even craft art if it’s just going to end up getting buried?” she continued. “Why not paintings? Why not poems? It’s not a coincidence. You bury your art, not because they are too special for the world, but because you cannot stand to see it for too long once it’s done. Like all art, it turns ugly, because it captures, while true beauty has to be in the uncapturable. Do you not see the paradox that plagues all petty artists, Caspian? The reason you’ll never be satisfied with your art.”
I made a sound to signal agreement. She didn’t react.
“What if I did something different?” I asked. “What if I didn’t capture you when I buried you? What if I released you into the world instead? Let you rain on me, on the locals. What if I concealed you within them, and before they even noticed, you slipped away to feast with the plankton? I could bury you without keeping you buried. It goes against my principles, but it would be the only way to properly do it.”
She kept staring at her feet.
“If it’s between you and the locals, you might as well be the one to do it,” she said.
I offered her the wine she had offered me earlier, aware that it would put her in a deep sleep. I saw her hands tremble. “Your girlfriend cheats on you,” she said, chuckling. Those would be her last words. Meaningless.
***
I grilled shish kebabs all night. Needed to appease the locals. But, it was already seven in the morning. Too early to donate kebabs. I worried they would get annoyed at me for waking them.
I placed the kebabs on a large plate. They rested on the chickpea pilaf, dressed with lemon juice. I even sprinkled sunflower seeds on top. The morning light caught the rising steam. I thought it would be smart to hand out the kebabs after a nap.
On the news, they were covering Madeline’s house. The headline read: A house made of corpses rots as victims peel off the furniture and walls. I lit a cigarette on the balcony, thinking about all of my works that had destroyed themselves. Nobody would feed me like Madeline again.
I had a hard time falling asleep after killing the silverfish. He no longer had any purpose without Madeline. I sprayed him, watched him die, then drained him down the toilet. I hoped they might reunite in the sea.
***
I woke up to the locals, the camel looking ones, spitting on me. My girlfriend was screaming, crying. But I think one of them calmed her down. First, I felt the skewers stabbing into me. They must have eaten the kebabs I left out before coming for me. What got me in the end was a burning in my chest. I remember nothing else. I died without even realizing it.
***
Now I’m supposed to be a dead man. A corpse. But my soul cannot leave my body after the disrespect committed against it. They buried me in an old-school coffin. Mine was supposed to be a sunflower seed. I worked on it for months.
Somewhere, I read that one in fifty burials is premature. It even made the news recently. They dug up a man’s grave after a while and were shocked to find scratch marks all over the inside of his coffin. I have no intention of making a similar mess here myself. I’m fine lying still till I die. It’s hard to kill a body. People ignore these possibilities in life. I don’t. That’s why I put a knife in that massage chair. I didn’t think he would use it to carve his way out of his coffin. I assumed he would finish himself, in the unlikely case he woke up.
The locals might have figured out how I buried Madeline in them. That’s why they must have killed me. But it sounded like it was her request, to be buried that way, so she could never be buried, get trapped in a box forever. A paradox to solve a paradox. By now, she has probably been released into the sea. Soon, her molecules will water us. Later, they will escape us again. In an eternal cycle, she will exist. Uncapturable. Yet captured.
I bet they thought it was all my idea before they attacked me. Even in death, they put me in the wrong box. This coffin will never attain the beauty it longed for. It will remain ugly forever.
Jude Kar is a philosophical fiction writer based in Vancouver. He studied philosophy and writing at university. In his free time, he enjoys birdwatching in Stanley Park. You can find more of his writing at judekar.com