Life Is Good

“What the hell is that?” He shrunk back from the tchothcke she had just unwrapped and placed delightedly on the desk in front of him.

“This?” She was quite cheerful about it. “Isn’t it cute?” She patted it gingerly.

“Cute? It’s a monstrosity! A shrunken head? Thank god, it’s a replica!” He shivered in reflex.

“No, it’s the real thing.” She picked up the baseball size head and cooed at it while stroking the hair gently, completely oblivious to the visual conflict of emotions on her husband’s face.

“It… but… postal regulations… customs… What the flying fuck do you mean, it’s real?” He hadn’t bolted off the couch yet, but the newspaper was settling at his feet in layers of disarray.

“You remember my grand-uncle? Herbert? The one that went to the South Pacific as a missionary and ‘went native’? This is the last of his inheritance for me.” She held the leathery head in her hands with the same tenderness as her voice conveyed. “He had to make special arrangements for this. He really put a lot of forethought into it.”

Her husband still hadn’t left the couch. But he did scoot to the far end of it. Clutching the arm rest as if it was his only anchor to sanity, he swallowed a few times as the timing of Herbert’s death came to his memory. “That crazy bastard died two years ago, if I’m not mistaken. With the very peoples he was supposed to bring out of savagery. You already received your inheritance from him. And being quite the penny-pincher about it, too!”

She laughed as she came over and sat next to him, pinning her frightened husband between herself and the couch’s armrest. Holding the shrunken head close to her face, she turned so her husband could see the head’s face beside her own. “Don’t you see the resemblance?”

What little courage had begun to steal back into his spine immediately left him at the implication of her question. He shrieked and fell over the arm rest in panic, almost kicking the head out of her hands in the process. He scrambled backwards and didn’t stop shrieking until he was lodged against the far wall.

“THAT’S HIM? THAT’S HERBERT’S HEAD? OH MY FUCKING GOD, YOU’RE HOLDING YOUR GRAND-UNCLE’S HEAD!”

“What’s left of it, anyway. The process removes the skull, so it’s just the skin and hair, really. But they did a great job of preserving the features in relation to each other.” She kissed the remnant of her grand-uncle gently. Rising off the couch, and chuckling at her husband still self-pinned against the wall in panic, she went to a cabinet held closed with a length of red silk.

“Hey! HEY! What are you doing? We have an agreement, remember? I keep my Christianity quiet if you keep your… things… hidden from me!” She paused before opening the cabinet.

“Well, then you have a choice. You can watch Uncle Herbert sitting on the entertainment center until after you’ve gone to bed and I can open my ancestor altar then. Or I open the ancestor altar, now, and put Uncle Herbert with the rest of his things. I’ll just not do the proper rites today, I’ll wait until Sunday when you’ve gone to church. But either way, I’m not going to tiptoe about this any longer. I understand now what he meant when he said he had a final lesson for me.”

“Wait. You knew this was coming?” She nodded from the still closed cabinet. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“I did. But you ignored it. The same you’ve been ignoring many other things I’ve been saying about us lately. And don’t you start trying to dismiss our problems as a religious dispute! I’ve watched how you treat your fellows at your church, and you are just as mean and spiteful to them as you are to me.” She holds up Herbert’s head, her grim expression slowly melting into strange mirth.

She lays the shrunken head on the entertainment center, and starts tying the ancestral altar doors. “But, you are right. I did agree to keep the altar closed when you were home. So Herbert will sit there and soak in some television after all, until Sunday. And don’t you get any ideas, Mister. I don’t touch your materials when you’ve left them out, at least grant me the same courtesy.

She patted Herbert on the head, and began to leave the living room.

“Wait.” She paused. “You knew this was coming.” She nodded. “Did he leave it in the will?”

“No. He told me a few years before he died. The last time he came back to the States for a family reunion.”

“So, he had made plans for this already.” She nodded again. “Even down to how it was going to be smuggled into the United States?” She nodded yet again. “Why?”

“As a momento mori. A reminder that death comes to all things, no matter how plump and cushioned you are living now. So why not enjoy life now? Even with all the struggles and hardships, with all the pain and recrimination, with all the devil’s bargains you agree to trying to keep what you can’t control at your side. Can’t you find one thing to smile at?”

He knew she was taking a stab at the tightening restrictions he had been putting on her display of her pagan faith. He originally started it at the advice of his own fervently religious uncle. Put her in her place by removing her place, he said. But the more he demanded of her, the fiercer her faith. And all for what? So he could brag with his church-fellows of the trials of living with a heathen? Why did she put up with it? Why didn’t she leave him?

He caught himself staring at the sunken sockets of Herbert’s head. He knew Herbert had died of cancer. He had chosen to spend his final years with his friends in the South Pacific instead of attempting treatment in the finest hospitals of the world. Yet every time he had inquired into Herbert’s health, his wife replied with “Life is good. He always answers with that and laughter.”

He didn’t notice when his wife had left the room. He chided himself for his irrational fear of the object. One day, I’m going to be dead. If I die before her, will she have a piece of me preserved and placed in that cabinet too? The thought brought chills to him and he wrapped his arms around his knees in comfort.

Her voice snapped him out of her reverie. She was calling him to dinner. When did the time pass? When he did not answer, she came into the living room looking for him. He hadn’t realized he had been crying until he looked up at her with stinging eyes. He looked at his wife, truly looked at her, and saw on her face the reason why she continued to stay with him despite his open hostility towards her faith.

She loved him. She cared for him. She had chosen to stay with the verbal sniping because she felt he was worth it. He felt ashamed and dirty for his motives. The unblinking stare of Herbert perched above him wasn’t helping. She never asked him to change for her, certainly not in the way he was asking of her. “What is tomorrow?”, she would say. “What is tomorrow, that you have to punish today for it?”

He finally understood.

“Honey, I really didn’t think it would upset you this much! I thought you were just in here sulking like usual, so I left you alone.” Her accurate portrayal of his typical response was both stinging and comforting.

He licked his lips, swallowed dryly a few times reaching for sound. “No, it’s okay. I had some thinking to do.” She had come over to him, and reached her hand out for him to take. He took it, and allowed her to help him to his feet.

Dancing gingerly, he noted his feet had fallen asleep. The little jig made them both chuckle as he held on to her for support.

“Listen, sweetheart. I’m a little uncomfortable with Herbert sitting out right now. After dinner, would you put him in the cabinet?” She sighed and nodded. “Can I watch?” She looked at him suspiciously. “Really. I want to see what you do.”

“Are you going to be okay with that? I don’t want you to put yourself in more risk with Jehovah than you already have with me.” He realized her concern was sincere.

“Yea. I think.” A moment of awkward silence. “I don’t know, really. But, if Herbert had this planned out for years, it would be wrong to deny him this now, I think.”

“Okay, but after dinner. You look like you need to sit in a proper chair for a while.” They both smiled at each other.

“Heh. Yea. My feet tickle.”, he admitted quietly.

“You’re not acting like yourself, are you going to be okay?” He continued to lean somewhat on her, as they left the living room into the dining room where dinner was on the table.

“Yea. Life is good. I’ll be okay.” A sudden silence. Then the couple exploded into loud, delightful, raucous laughter.

On the entertainment center, Herbert’s shrunken head shifted slightly. Perhaps the weight wasn’t as centered as thought. Perhaps the slightly humid air caused a stitch to give. But for whatever reason, the head shifted backwards slightly, giving it the appearance of adding to the laughter.

(This work written for, and inspired by, Sunday Scribblings #293: Life Is Good.)