As I sat in there in the cold lobby of the city morgue, all I could do was hope that the police officers that had brought me here were wrong. All I could think about was the last thing I said to her, the last time i saw her.
While I waited for the mortician and the first officer to come and get me I tried to think of any way to get my mind off of the stark white lobby I was sitting in, but all of my senses were being overwhelmed by the hospital like environment. All I could smell was the fake flower fragrance of febreeze trying to cover up the scent of what could only be death.
The only thing I could look at were the dusty, fake purple flowers in the corners of the room, dimly lit by the florescent lights above. All the time I was waiting the buzzing of the lights infiltrated every corner of the room and my thoughts, the only other sound was the occasional cough from the woman sitting at the front desk.
Finally after what felt like a lifetime the officer came back with an elderly man whom could only have been the mortician or his assistant. They said that her body was ready and that I could come back now. Could, what an interesting choice of words. If I could have I would have waited in that room for the rest of my life if it meant that I could believe that she was still alive, still out there somewhere. That she was just at a friends house and her phone was off. But I had to face reality, I had to go back there, if not for the police then for myself. I had to know. I had to know if it was Jade.
The two men led me through the maze of white halls until we got to a pair of steel doors. They opened the doors for me and I walked into the dimly lit room and saw a white sheet over a table in the middle of the room. It looked to be straight out of a crime movie, the overhead light shining bright over the body. The only difference was that you can't smell the death through the T.V. As we walked up to the table I started to loose my nerve and panic. It couldn't be Jade, it just couldn't. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack as they pulled the bleached white sheet from the head of the body.
I got back to my apartment around four in the morning, but even though i was exhausted i couldn't sleep. The memories of the morgue were etched into my mind. Walking through those cold steel doors, making my way up to the autopsy table, then looking at her body. Her cold dead body. I couldn't get the image out of my head. All I wanted to do was forget the way she looked and remember her for what she was, but now all i could remember of her was her pale blue lips, her sunken eyes, and her cold dead skin. This was not how i wanted to remember her but it is now the only image i have of her to think about.
After i saw her body I told the officer that it was her, it was Jade. He gave me a somber apology for my loss but that didn't help. At first I felt an extreme pressure building up in my chest, my throat began to clench and I though i was going to break down right there and then. But then it all vanished. I felt nothing, my mind went blank, anything the two men said was lost to me, everything i saw was a cold and hollow shell as if I was watching an old black and white movie. I felt, nothing, and i liked it. i actually liked it...
That morning I went to work like nothing happened. Whenever someone went by me they looked at me, and then looked away, they must have been able to tell that something had happened, but it wasn't until later that afternoon that someone actually asked me if everything was all right. It was one of my friends from work, Sarah Hart.
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