Meeting and Parting, a visit to the coroner's crypt

It’s safe to say most people would back away from a refrigerated storage full of hundreds of human bodies. It was, as the County Coroner told our group, called the Crypt. It was a basketball court sized room of the remains of those who perished in questionable circumstances under investigation. What struck me at first was the waxy mannequin-appearance of the first foot I laid eyes on. A wave of unreality swept through me and, as I stepped closer to the body, a veil lifted from my mind, and the foot appeared clearer to me. As I looked closer, I discovered the familiarity of human skin; the lines, the calloused heels. I walked around the crypt and studied these bodies wrapped in plastic and tied with white rope, each only one foot poking out with a tag identifying the number of the case. I wondered about their lives, whether they had children. 

 

That all these inert remains had been people who lived and loved was most real to me. As I walked through those rows of bunk-bed style metal shelves of plastic wrapped bodies, naked and in varying states of decay, I thought -  death is the great equalizer. We shall all end up the same. No social or financial distinctions. We shall all rot and stink - however glamorous or dignified.

 

And that’s what occurred to me at first seeing them all there in that thirty-seven degree refrigerator. While they wait in that stillness, the ending in the story of their lives is told under microscopes and revealed by scalpels.

 

The next day I rendezvoused with a friend. Throughout the conversation, he disarmed me by recounting our lives as film students all those years ago and who I was back then. Talking to him about film making and who I was then delivered me to continuity. It drew me toward the thread of my life. There’s a story he keeps me connected to.

 

Thinking about that, about continuity, about what’s human in death and the persistence of our life stories, I was able to bring the entire universe to a standstill, the only movement - our meeting and parting.