It was specifically stated in my will that my mother not be my embalmer. As the Commander-in-Chief of a country in strife, I was practical enough to understand that my creator might survive me. Unfortunately, I was not intuitive enough to foresee my testament being destroyed by my dissidents. Now, my mother, the mortician, was shaving the fine hair off my face in preparation for makeup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It might look like she was injecting Botox, but she was really trying to close my mouth using a tool that hooked barbs around my jawbones. I wanted my scowl unyielding, even in death, but she was committed to fixing me a soft, feminine smile. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though I was no longer inside my body, I could still feel the heaviness of the chemical paint she applied to my papery skin. Throughout my life, I resisted her attempts to continue creating me\u2014brushing away knots from my hair, lifting the stains from my clothes, combing down everything I had worked hard on. One of the principal duties of mothers, after they loved you of course, was to make you suitable to being loved by others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last time my mother saw me naked, I was just a girl. To become my own woman, I did not permit vulnerabilities like that, like allowing her to embalm me. Still, when I wisped from the center of the dark knot of death back into the world of streaming color, I mused I might get to smell her sweet powder and blush again. I could smell it through my idea of a nose in my idea of a body as I leaned over her shoulder as she piped a glue-like fluid into my old body\u2019s orifices. A memory of biting the gold locket at her chest glinted like my phantom shadow in the shine of the casket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My mother\u2019s hand shot up to the back of her neck, finding me, an itch. It was time for her to reveal my body to the other mourners, her swan song. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem with being a guest at your own funeral is that you feel like a host. I wanted to be remembered as clever and indomitable. This is difficult when you step on a landmine visiting your mistress on the border of Belarus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, I lingered while relatives and family friends cried into the casket. My closest companions from the militia days were not invited. My family resented them for supporting my revolutionary pursuits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suddenly my army burst in, opening fire at my mother, cousins, and the funeral home groundskeeper. My body was picked up gingerly and put it into a vehicle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I revisit my body, in the temperature-controlled cellar where my comrades now keep it. The head floats in a fluid-filled container, keeping me preserved until science develops. I will not look quite right for a revolution when I\u2019m revived again. My mouth is closed pleasantly. My hair is tied into bows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
__________<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cate Valinote’s work has appeared in the <\/em>Berkeley Fiction Review, <\/em>The Daily Californian, and elsewhere. She has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"