In the Pipeline - by Kyle Heger

For all the warmth she exuded, the

young woman with long lashes

could just as easily have been selling

fruit smoothies or cell phones as

burial services while we discussed

what to do with your remains, sitting

in an office that reminded me far too

much of the one where I had been

suckered into making my first and last

time-share condominium purchase

after a three-margarita sales pitch.

But at least she represented something

individually human: a voice, a pair of

eyes, a customized name tag. So, when,

on the day on which the interment had

been scheduled, I discovered that she

was not on the premises, that she had

broken her commitment to accompany

me through the process, that she had,

instead, without telling me, foisted me

off on a salesman I’d never met, I was

dismayed. Behind their counter, staff

members broke away from a spirited

conversation about football long enough

to greet with equal parts surprise, contempt

and amusement my request that your ashes

be treated a bit more gingerly than a sack

of dirty laundry. Was I one of those party-

pooper consumer activists they’d been

warned against? Did I need Sherlene to

hold my hand during what was, after all,

a pretty cut-and-dried process? Who was

I to blow the whistle on somebody who

always brings such great cheesecakes to

company potlucks? When they passed me

off on the manager, he was careful not to

admit that any wrongdoing had occurred,

in case I had a lawsuit up my sleeve, but,

wanting to keep on the good side of the

Better Business Bureau, he grudgingly set

another date and gave me the cold comfort

of an assurance that he himself would be

there to assist me.

But as I stand here now, watching a little

concrete box lowered into the open earth

on a hillside overlooking the San Francisco

Bay, I realize that it would be easier for a

disgruntled funeral-home employee to

desecrate your ashes than it would be for

an unhappy fast-food worker to spit in the

milk shake, and I can’t help wondering what

is really being covered up with soil (maybe

just a bundle of unopened junk mail) while

your remains are swirling toward the bay

in the sewers. 

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 Kyle Heger, former managing editor of “Communication World” magazine, lives in Albany, CA. His writing has appeared in “The Binnacle,” “eFiction,” “Five Poetry,” “Foliate Oak,” “Milk Sugar,” “Miller’s Pond,” “Nerve Cowboy,” “Poem,” “The Santa Clara Review,” “Third Wednesday,” “The Thorny Locust” and other publications.