Omneya’s Mobile Morgue

 

Omneya drives an old black motorcycle-hearse left to her by a late aunt. She works the night shift dig crew at a cemetery in Juarez. The only place she gets any peace and quiet is the worker’s lunchroom––stacked with coffins, shelf of urns––where she’s goes to write letters to her father––all the things she wanted to say before he became one more meat sandwich for Death’s lunch. Omneya writes, “Your heart’s quarantine is as harsh as long––till the red dye in my popcorn turns to blood.” Something lush about stark cactus-agave dotted cemetery, gravestones on the empty dark red-baked dirt, least of all these persistent cavity explosions that rock the morgue. Mercenaries walk the streets, juggling human organs as they pass her by. Dark rumors persist––13 of the deceased missing (driven away in refrigerator truck). Her body covered in a harlequin of tattoos, there’s this last sentence––“I am the tunnel and I am the light.”

 

 

[Published in The Ongoing Saga I Told My Daughter: Expanded Edition.

© 2016 by Jim Cohn.]

 

 

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The Ongoing Saga I Told My Daughter: Expanded Edition
(MAP Publications, 2016)

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