Shaina Fisher Zipping a Body Bag I was wearing blue hospital scrubs, but apart from that any number of things might have been said about my appearance. I was walking quickly, my pockets lumps of keys, spare gloves, a pen, chap stick, a piece of hard candy and a folded sheet of paper - signifying that my day was well in order. I paced into room 203. They had warned me she was dead. I peeked around the curtain and, sure enough, she was - clad in a pale blue sweater and floral skirt, with a yellow ribbon dangling in her long grey hair. I grabbed some gloves from a dispenser on the wall, snapping a pair on my hands and stuffing a few in my pocket, and then slid past the curtain into her room. I walked on the sides of my feet, to diminish the squeaking against the linoleum floor. There was no one other than myself to be bothered by the noise, but there are times when it is appropriate to take great care not even to bother oneself. The room smelled of a deep lemon: packaged wipes used to sponge down the angry scents of a dead body. Her hand rested against her side, crinkled and gray. I touched it, out of curiosity I guess. It was cold and rubbery. Veins protruded, like folds on a tire. I pulled my hand back and brushed it against my hip, then turned to her nightstand, where her body bag lay folded and packaged. I ripped the packaging open and unfolded it with both hands, pausing to read the tag. It was my first time putting a body bag to use and I wanted to make sure I did it correctly. While other procedures in my job might be roughed over in the heat of things, the thought of men in the mortuary finding her wrongly packaged put me on edge. I stood on the right side of the bed, and placed the bag along her left side, the zipper opening toward her feet. Then I took her by the left arm and leg, pulling her toward me. Her body was rigid and turned easily like driftwood, only her flesh was still malleable beneath my fingers. Skin cells stay alive for several days, I had read - and I remotely imagined millions of tiny organisms performing their duties, unaware of the rapid decomposition taking place beneath them. I tucked the body bag under her shoulder and hip, as I had been taught, and rolled her onto her back, lifting her other side just enough to pull the tucked edges of the bag out from underneath her. I adjusted the corners so that her body was centered on a perfect rectangle. There was a smaller package attached at the bottom left corner of her bag, which I detached and opened. In it were two blue strings and a manual with diagrams sketched in red. It said the limbs might resituate themselves and that precautions must be taken to make sure the body does not finalize itself in an awkward position. I placed the longer string beneath her ankles and tied it around her stockings. Black knee-high stockings and shiny black shoes. Apparently her family thought that her feet and legs needed to be in mourning while the rest of her body enjoyed its last rays of sunlight in colorful pastels. The little black shoes looked pretty on her feet, which I had previously seen only in heavy therapeutic shoes. I tied the string in a bow for dignity and a double knot for security. I then pulled both hands together, crossing them just below her breasts. The hands were more difficult than the feet, because one of her arms kept falling. It took more than one attempt, which made me blush. I placed her wrists between the fingers of my right hand. One end of the blue string was under my grip, while my left hand wound the other end around her wrists. Like a child with her mom's shoelace, I managed to work a bow, or at least a stable knot, out of the two ends of string. When I pulled my hand away, hers remained folded in a feigned position of prayer. All that remained to do was to zip the bag. "Zipping is always the hardest part," I had been told. I lifted each side of the white plastic sheet over her outfit. I took the metal zipper in my fingers and slid it up, past the black Sunday shoes, along her knee-high socks, the white bag closing over her floral skirt. The zipper snagged at her sweater, pale blue threads sticking out between the metal clamps. I retracted to dislodge the sweater, then up again, my hands passing over hers and pulling the zipper right up to her neck. I stopped at her chin. Her mouth was flat against her cheeks, skin sagging downward, as it had always done. Her nose was erect with the angles that mark a human face. Her forehead furrowed into that spot above her nose where wrinkles always multiplied. My eyes followed the wrinkles down to the two glossy circlets on either side of her nose: blotchy brown irises winding around jet black pupils. Outside each circle, the yellowish white surface disappeared beneath her lids. They were eyes - not staring or vacant or anything that living eyes can be. It was as if behind that intricately designed surface a curtain had been pulled. I stared at her face. It looked thirsty. Other than that there was nothing to see. I pulled the zipper past her chin, nose, and fixed pupils, fastening it shut at the top. I left the white bag lying on the bed and stepped into the hallway, where the nurse waited with a gurney. "She's ready," I said. My fingers pulled at my bulging blue pockets.