THE PENDULUM OF TIME

by James Jandak Wood

The centrifugal pump hisses and whirs, pulling embalming fluid from Ackman’s body. The soft breathing of the embalmer is the only other sound in the room.

The embalmer forces blood back into the body, which then lies on the pallet for several more hours, naked in the harsh, fluorescent light. Purple, varicose veins bulge against the skin, white and bumpy as a freshly plucked chicken. Thin wisps of hair are matted to the otherwise bald crown.

Funeral home attendants take Ackman from the pallet, put him in a hearse and drive him to the morgue. They place him on a steel table. The coroner attaches a needle to the thick stitches in Ackman’s chest, unwinds them from a large incision and probes around Ackman’s heart and lungs. Then he takes a knife and runs it across Ackman's upper body, the cut disappearing under the blade, re-sealing his chest cavity. Paramedics arrive, remove Ackman from the table, put him on a gurney and wheel him into an ambulance.

In a hospital room miles away, Ackman’s wife stands staring out the window while an orderly covers a bed and pillow with soiled linens. The orderly backs out of the room, his rubber soled shoes squeaking against the grayish-green tiled floor. The paramedics bring Ackman’s dead body into the hospital room and place him on the bed. His wife moves to the bedside. She reaches for his hand and grips it tightly.

Sometime later, through a miraculous communing of cells, Ackman comes to life with a gasp. Synapses fire. Sound and light begin to register in Ackman’s brain, though he remains unconscious. Choppy images float through his mind. Days pass as his thoughts cohere into lengthy dreams. His wife whispers to him, sucking words of love and compassion back into her throat.

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