The Process | Sean Cunningham

Polyester Gabardine was born in a mortuary, all red and pink among so much white, black, chrome, and grey. Her screams woke all the dead. They sprang up from their slabs and out of their drawers to cradle this baby, all red and pink – no mother around – flailing on the cold tiles. They huddled around to keep her warm, but she generated more heat than all their bodies combined. The screams reverberated off every surface. They scrambled to soothe her, tearing the lining from coffins, wrapping her first moments in the fabric of final moments. They cradled and rocked her, and sang dead songs through wired teeth, but her screams kept coming. The dead could feel her impossible warmth railing against their impossible cold.

They thought maybe she was hungry, or maybe she was thirsty. They smushed some of the mortician's make-up and she wolfed it down; lipsticks, eye shadows, foundation – but the wails carried on. She ate tweezers, glass, brass handles, and grout, and still she screamed. They fed her embalming fluid through a tube, to wash it all down, and the crying echoed out in a moment. Her eyes opened for the first time – shiny jets amongst all that red and pink. When she'd had enough, her eyes closed again, she pushed away the tube and looked to yawn – for a second she might have howled – as she lay her fragile head against the chest of one of the dead. They wrapped her up in more lining to protect her from the same cold that got in them, leaving just her tiny face exposed, all red and pink, and lay her back on the tile where she was born. The dead shuffled silent, tidying up the mess made, returned themselves to their slabs and drawers, and all returned to sleep.

Sean Cunningham is a writer of flash and poetry, from Liverpool. He is part of the editing team at Flash Fiction Magazine, and his work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in publications such as Full House Literary Magazine, Rejection Letters, Splonk, Fugue, Into the Void, and Ellipsis Zine, among others. He can be found on Twitter: @sssseanjc