EC Comics: Ray Bradbury Three-Pack 2/3 (There Was An Old Woman)
The tall dark young man stood quietly, not moving. Aunt Tildy shook her head, fussing with her knitting.
AUNT TIDLY: "No! There's no use arguing. I got my mind fixed. You run along with your silly wicker basket. Land, land, where'd you ever get notions like that? You just skit out of here and don't bother me."
The tall dark man sat down. he just sat there, staring. The bone-porcelain, flowered clock on the mantel chimed three. Out in the hall, grouped around the wicker basket, four men waited, quietly, hardly moving, as if they were there.
AUNT TIDLY: "Now about that wicker basket. It's past six feet long and by the look of it, it ain't laundry. And those four men you walked in with, you don't need them to carry the basket. Why, it's light as thistles, eh?"
The dark young man watched Aunt Tildy. Something in his face suggested that the basket wouldn't be so light after a while. There's be something in it.
AUNT TIDLY: "Now where've I seen a wicker like that before? Seems to me...oh! Now I remember. It was when Mrs. Dwyer passed away next door."
Aunt Tildy set her knitting down sternly.
AUNT TIDLY: "So that's what you're here for. I thought you were workin' to sell me something. Well, you just set 'till Emily comes home. She'll take care of you. She'll shoo you out of the parlor so quick. It'll..."
The dark man looked at Aunt Tildy as if she were tired.
AUNT TIDLY: "No, I'm not! I'm not tired! Great sons o' Goshen on the gilberry pike. I got a hundred comforters, two hundred sweaters and six hundred pot-holders in these fingers, no matter how skinny they are. You tun and come back when they're done and maybe I'll talk to you."
There was a noise. The mantel clock sounded three. Strange. It seemed to her that it had chimed three once before.
AUNT TIDLY: "Are you just goin' to sit there, young man?"
He was...
AUNT TIDLY: "Then, you won't mind if I take a nap. Just a cat-nap. Now you don't get up off that chair. You set there. You set there and don't come creepin' around me. Just goin' to close my eyes for a wee spell...so feathery. So drowsy. So deep. underwater, almost. Oh, so nice. Who's that movin' around in the dark with my eyes closed? Who's that kissin' my cheek? You, Emily? No. Guess it was my thoughts. Only dreaming'. Driftin'...driftin' off...off..."
The clock chimed three again. Aunt Tildy sat up. The young man in the dark suit stood near the door.
AUNT TIDLY: "You leavin' so soon, young man? Good thing! Emily's comin' home and she'd fix you. Had to give up, didn't you? Couldn't convince me, could you? Well, young man, you needn't bother comin' back to try again!"
The dark young man bowed with slight dignity. He had no intention of coming back...ever.
AUNT TIDLY: "Fine. Why you couldn't get me out of this house. Nosiree! Why, I'm going to knit in this window the next thousand years. They'll have to chew the boards around me to...to...Quit lookin' like the cat ate the bird! Get out and tote that fool wicker box with you!"
The four men treaded heavily out the front door. Tildy studied the way they handled the wicker. It wasn't heavy, yet they staggered with its weight. She glanced about concernedly.
AUNT TIDLY: "Here, now. Did you steal some of my antiques? My books? No. The clocks? No. What you got in that wicker?"
The dark man offered the lid of the wicker to Aunt Tildy. In pantomime, he wondered if she'd like to open it and gaze inside.
AUNT TIDLY: "Curious? Me? Shaw, now. Get out! Get outta here! Goodbye!"
The door slammed. That was better. Darned fool men with their maggoty ideas.
AUNT TIDLY: "Ah. Here comes Emily. About time. But, land. She looks pale and funny today. Walkin' so slow."
Emily shuffled into the parlor, head down.
AUNT TIDLY: "Emily, I been waitin' for you. There was the darnedest fool men just here with a wicker. Good you're home! Emily...Emily, stop screaming!"
A white-smocked man, evidently a mortician, glanced up from the recently arrived wicker as Aunt Tildy stormed into the mortuary.
MORTICIAN: "Madame! This is not fit for a gentlewoman!"
AUNT TIDLY: "Well, glad you feel that way. Them's my sentiments, exactly. I don't want me here. I want me home! I got Emily to feed! Sweaters to knit. Clocks to wind!"
The mortician looked at her, then at the wicker. He mouthed his words with apparent relish and a winnowing of his knives, tubes, jars and instruments.
MORTICIAN: "Madame! I have work to do. A body has arrived."
AUNT TIDLY: "You lay so much as a cuticle on that body and I'll thrash you!"
The mortician opened the wicker lid casually. Then, in a recurrent series of scrutinies, he realized that the body inside was...it seemed...could it be...?
MORTICIAN: "Eh, this lady, here. She is...a...relative?"
AUNT TIDLY: "No, you fool! Me! Do you hear? Me! I want my body back!"
The mortician considered the idea. He shook his head.
MORTICIAN: "No! Things like this don't happen! George! Show her out! Get help from the others! I can't work with a crank present!"
The four men assembled and converged. Aunt Tildy was a last fortress, arms crossed in defiance.
AUNT TILDY: "Won't budge!"
She repeated this as she was evicted in consecutive movies, like a pawn on a chessboard, from the laboratory. Finally, she sat down on a chair in the vestibule of the funeral parlor. There were pews going back into grey silence and a flower smell.
MAN: "You can't sit there, ma'am!"
AUNT TILDY: "I'm sitting here 'till I get what I want!"
Mr. Carrington, mortuary president, heard the disturbance and came toddling down the aisle to investigate.
MR. CARRINGTON: "Here, here! More respect! Oh, madame. May I help you?"
AUNT TIDLY: "Go in that back room there and tell that eager investigator to quit foolin' with my body!"
Mr. Carrington hurried off. After fifteen minutes of comparing notes with the mortician behind closed doors, he returned, three shades whiter.
MR. CARRINGTON: "Uh, that is...most irregular! Most irregular!
AUNT TIDLY: "Look here, mister blood and bones, you tell that...!"
MR. CARRINGTON: "But he's already pumping the blood from the body!"
AUNT TILDY: "WHAT?!"
MR. CARRINGTON: "Yes, yes. So you just go away, now. There's nothing to be done. The blood's running and soon the body'll be all filled with nice fresh formaldehyde. And besides, he's alos performing a brief autopsy."
AUNT TIDLY: "Cuttin' me, is he?"
MR. CARRINGTON: "Y-Yes. To determine cause of death, y'know. He-"
AUNT TIDLY: "March straight in and tell that cut-em-up to pump all that fine New England blood right back into that fine-skinned body! And if he's taken anything out, for him to attach it back in so it'll function proper! You hear?"
MR. CARRINGTON: "There's nothing I can do! Nothing!"
AUNT TIDLY: "Alright! I'm settin' here the next two hundred years! You hear? And anytime anyone comes near me, I'll spit ectoplasm right quirt up their left nostril!"
MR. CARRINGTON: "You...you wouldn't do that! You...you'll dislocate our business! You wouldn't!"
AUNT TIDLY: "Oh, wouldn't I?"
MR. CARRINGTON: "Alright! Alright! You can have your body back!"
AUNT TIDLY: "Ha!"
Aunt Tildy shouted in triumph then with caution.
AUNT TIDLY: "Intact? No formaldehyde?"
MR. CARRINGTON: "Intact. No formaldehyde."
AUNT TIDLY: "Blood back in?"
MR. CARRINGTON: "Blood, my good, yes, blood! If you'll only take it and go!"
AUNT TIDLY: "Fair enough. Fix 'er up. It's a deal."
MR. CARRINGTON: "I'll...tell the mortician."
Aunt Tildy didn't look at the body much. Her only comment was...
AUNT TIDLY: "Natural lookin'. Easy! Easy! Put the wicker basket down t'the floor where I can step in it."
Then she let herself fall back into the wicker. A biting sensation of arctic coldness, a great unlikely nausea and a giddy whorling, like two drops of matter fusing together. Water trying to seep into concrete. The mortuary people watched Aunt Tildy's wriggles, trying to assist with boosting and grunting moves of their arms and hands. Seeping into cold granite. Seeping into a frozen statue, squeezing all the way.
AUNT TIDLY: "Come alive, dern ye! Raise up a bit."
The body half rose, rustling in the dry wicker.
AUNT TIDLY: "See! Feel!"
Light entered the webbed blind eyes. The body felt the room warmth.
AUNT TIDLY: "Move! Walk!"
The body took a creakingly unsteady step. The body walked.
AUNT TIDLY: "Now...speak! Much obliged. Thank you. Now...cry!"
...and Aunt Tildy began to cry tears of utter happiness. And now, any afternoon about four, if you want to visit Aunt Tildy, you just walk around and knock on her door. There's a big black funeral wreath on it. But don't mind that. Aunt Tildy left it there. She has a sense of humor. Just rap on the door and she'll say...
AUNT TIDLY: "Is it the man in black?"
PERSON: "No. It's me, Aunt Tildy!"
She'll unlock the double-barred, triple-locked door and she'll laugh and say...
AUNT TIDLY: "Come in. Quickly."
And she'll whip the door open and slam it shut behind you so no man-in-black can ever slip in with you. Then she'll escort you in and maybe pour you some tea and maybe if you're 'specially good, she'll five you a treat. She'll unfasten the white lace at her neck and chest and, for a brief moment, show what lies beneath...the long blue autopsy scar.
AUNT TIDLY: "Not bad sewin', for a man."