Le magasin des suicides

“The Suicide Shop, can I help you?”
Mrs Tuvache, in a blood-red blouse, answers the phone and asks the caller to wait: “Please hold, sir”, while she gives change to a client, whose face is contorted with anguish. The client leaves, carrying her biodegradable bag, one side of which reads The Suicide Shop and the other: Has your life been a failure? With us, your death will be a success! Lucrecia waves at her client: “Goodbye, madam”, then picks up the phone again:
“Hello? Oh, it´s you, Mr Chang! Of course I remember you: the rope, this morning, right?…. You… You want us to…? I can´t hear you (the client must be calling from a mobile). Invite us to your funeral? Oh, how kind! But when are you having it? Oh, the rope´s already round your neck? Well it´s Tuesday today, tomorrow´s Wednesday… so the ceremony will be on Thursday. Hang on, I´ll ask my husband…”
She calls to the back of the shop, near the chiller cabinet:
“Mishima! Mr Chang´s on the line. You know, the caretaker from the Forgotten Religions housing estate… Yes, the guy from Mohammed’s Tower. He wants to ask us to his funeral on Thursday. That’s not the day the new rep from To Hell with Death is coming? Oh, that´s the Thursday after. So we can go.”
She speaks into the receiver again:
“Hello? Mr Chang?… Hello!…” She hangs up, with the observation: “Ropes, they´re basic, but effective. We should think about recommending hemp. With the holidays coming. Hey, Marilyn, come over here.”
Marilyn Tuvache is now seventeen. Indolent and shapeless, with heavy pendulous breasts, she´s ashamed of her body, it´s a burden to her. Her t-shirt shows all her bulges, there´s a white rectangle on it with black borders that says: “LIVING KILLS”.
Feather duster in hand, she listlessly shifts dust on a shelf where razor blades for cutting veins are laid out. Some are rusty; a label next to them says: Even if it’s not a deep cut, you´ll get tetanus. The mother asks her daughter:
“Go to Tristan and Isolde florist´s and buy a funeral wreath, a small one mind! On the band, have them write: To our client, Mr Chang, from the Suicide Shop. He´ll probably have asked a fair few tenants from Mohammed´s Tower too, and they´ll say: "He didn´t bungle it, our caretaker. It´ll be good publicity.”
© Lulu Norman.

Excerpt taken from Le magasin des suicides