Original Son

“The boys had not pushed the lid entirely open before the odor rushed at them, a sickly chemical barnyard smell. It was enough to make Duck cough. Sonny flipped the lid over, opening up the container. Ink Ear, looking in from what would be the feet of Eldon Burley, screamed. Duck who had turned away to cough turned around and then jumped back. Sonny, peering in at Eldon Burley’s head, stared and gulped. None of the boys had ever seen a dead body before. Ink Ear Ryan had a brother and a sister die in infancy but he had not seen their bodies. Duck Stadler was a babe in arms at his grandmother’s funeral. Sonny Tolliver had drawn pictures of corpses in his school notebook, usually with knives sticking in them and blood gushing out, but he had never seen a real corpse. The first genuine dead body any of them ever saw was Eldon Burley, lying in his shipping coffin, arms crossed over his chest, his shiny hair pasted down and one eye open. It was like he was winking at them.”