Autopsy of a Comedian. Emilie Collyer

      BLURB

      Thwarted ambition, talent turned sour, supernatural encounters, last chances for redemption. The characters of these stories all face crucial turning points in their lives that reveal their true colours. A collection of speculative fiction with a darkly humorous flavour that will put a twist in how you see the world.

       Autopsy of a Comedian

      A forensic pathologist is confronted with a case that gets under his skin and inside his mind.

       Fifteen Minutes

      A private detective - down on his luck, whose daughter is missing - has an unexpected encounter with the living dead.

       Glisten

      They're the perfect couple with the perfect life, until one day when the mysterious pods start arriving.

       Masterpiece

      For a has-been artist, now teacher, one final chance for artistic glory comes at a price.

      AUTOPSY OF A COMEDIAN

       I'm standing in darkness, in the hush before the storm. The pounding builds up: blood rushing, skin tingling, chest heaving. Then there's an explosion of applause. Where's the mike? There's my light. Yes. I'm real. I'm born again.

      Felix let Kavisha prep the cadaver on the table. He wondered if he even needed to examine the body.

      Male, 66 years old. Occupation: Comedian. If it wasn't his liver it would surely be his heart: excessive drinking, smoking, most likely a poor diet.

      'Anything in the clothing?' Felix called out to Kavisha.

      'No signs of bleeding or trauma. Wool suit. Tailor-made by the look of it. Silk tie, Valentino shirt. Neat fingernails, clipped. Clean-shaven. There's something in the hair - wax, or cream? His eyes were open but I've shut them.'

      'All right. No marks or abrasions?'

      Felix readied himself and approached the table, lowering his voice as he did so. No matter how many times he did this and how diminished his professional desire had become, it was still a privilege to bear witness to a human life.

      'Nothing. He looks… perfect.'

      'What's his name, our comedian?'

      Kavisha checked the file.

      'It just says Sammy.'

       You know, this is gig number 7,311. I've been on stage over 47 years. I wanted to get to 10,000 gigs. Could have too, if I'd stayed at five a week. Got enough material. The problem is getting the gigs. Those buggers in the big city venues stopped booking me once the grey hair started to show. Country towns are always good. There's always something going on. But it's the driving, you see. It cuts down the number of gigs I can do in a week. I won't reach that magic tenner now. Bloody buggers.

      'Well, Sammy, let's have a look at you.'

      Felix scanned the body to corroborate Kavisha's initial examination.

      'Lividity in both legs. How was he discovered?'

      'Well, according to this, the bar manager was the only person in the venue. Sammy was on stage, the manager went out the back to get some stock. By the time he returned Sammy had stopped talking, he was just standing there. No response to auditory stimulation. And the barman was too scared to touch him. He called the ambulance.'

      Felix didn't recognise the fellow. He idly wondered at the career trajectory of a comedian. Fame might not have been the main goal. Still, could the effort really have been worth it if you got to the end of life and died performing to an empty room?

      Sammy's eyes were closed but there was something about his face - an upward inflection around the mouth, a wrinkle of hope in the forehead - that was as if a question had been asked and not yet answered. Felix placed his hand on Sammy's chest. Of course the heart was no longer beating. What a ridiculous gesture.

       Jokes are dead, they started saying, back more than twenty years ago. Now you just got to notice things and ask questions. 'What's the story with cheese?' 'How about airline food?' I don't know. Didn't seem like comedy to me so much as shopping queue conversation, but that's what they said. So I learned to do it. Then, of course, the young buggers jumped on what the Python fellas were doing, thirty years earlier. Absurd humour was all the go. Non sequiturs, physical stuff… kept me on my toes. But I did it. 'How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? Fish.' You know the kind of thing.

      Felix made the first incision, swift and deft: shoulder to breastbone. Then sternum to pubic bone. He pulled the skin back. He sawed through the rib cage and cut away the sternal plate. Felix made a cursory examination of the organs as they lay, before removing them as one. He would study them later, in detail.

      As he worked he described what he saw, which, to his surprise, was not very much. It was as Kavisha had said: on the surface there were no discernible signs of disease or deterioration; Sammy was virtually a perfect specimen of a human body. Except that he was dead.

      His lungs were plump and pink, his liver lean and healthy. There was no scarring, no clots. The contents of his stomach were bland and uninteresting. In short, there was no indication whatsoever of a cause of death. It was as if Sammy had simply stopped, like an unwound watch.

      Next was the brain. By this stage Felix had usually hit his stride and was operating in a state of semi-automation. But today the scalp incision was difficult. He had a creeping sense of invasion. And the vibrating saw added to the sense of intrusion. Felix found himself checking Sammy's fingertips as he worked, sure that he would see them twitch in protest or pain.

      'Are you all right? Do you need to take a break?'

      Kavisha's steady tone returned Felix to himself.

      'Clean that up, will you.'

      Embarrassed, Felix noticed that his momentary lapse in concentration had disrupted his usually pristine and contained technique. There were spatters of blood and fluid on the floor. It was disgraceful. He cut the brain stem with more force than was absolutely necessary, to reassert his control.

      'What are the instructions for burial?' he barked at Kavisha.

      'There aren't any.'

      'Family?'

      'Doesn't seem to be. The police are looking into it.'

      Felix placed the brain in formalin, took samples of the major organs and instructed Kavisha to replace what had been removed and sew Sammy up. Given that it was likely there was no family and therefore no burial to worry about, he would let the brain set for a few weeks and then examine it properly.

      He left Sammy on the table and left the room with a wrenching pain of separation. Why had this cadaver got to him? They never bothered him.

      He refused calls for the rest of the day and punished Kavisha with silence.

      Late that night, unable to rest, Felix walked from room to room searching for a radio he might have accidentally left on. He could hear a scratching, incessant muttering. Maybe it was coming from the neighbour's place. Felix pulled on his running shoes and went outside to check. Their house was silent and still. The muttering continued.

      He went for a run, pounding the pavement, willing his body to exhaustion and his mind to submission. The voice got louder, clearer.