DBD Inc.

Whilst at a recent funeral I was in conversation with a third cousin (twice removed) and the subject, quite naturally, turned to death.
“What a shame” I said “that you can’t organise these things a bit better give a bit more fluidity to the finality. Rather than this all ‘all of a sudden, drop everything, somebody’s dead’ scenario we have now.” He looked at me and grinned with the left third of his mouth, “Well it just so happens you can.” He slid his hand inside his jacket and removed a leather bound, beaten and worn filofax. After flicking through the pages he clucked his teeth in satisfaction, the satisfaction of finding something where he’d left it, and passed me a small white card. I looked at it, it was completely blank, I stood puzzled for a moment in the mid June sunshine and my cousin suggested I turn it over. On the back of the card was printed a company name:

DBD Inc

Who are they and what do they do? I pondered momentarily; luckily my cousin is blessed with a mild social telepathy, “They’re a company based in Sussex, they deal in the whole death thing” he said, “They’ve taken care of all my details.” I continued to stare at the card, how do you get in touch with them? There was no phone number, or email or even a real address. In the periphery of my vision I saw a ruffling as my cousin produced another white card from his filofax. This one simply said DBD: 08000 251908. I pocketed both cards and was about to ask my cousin a bit more about the trout farm he’d recently bought shares in, only to discover that he had wandered off and was now talking to my great aunt about the limitless merits of the Autobahns.

Several weeks later I had occasion to be wearing my funeral suit again, the same cousin had been involved in a car wreck abroad and the foreign Government had finally agreed to send back a coffin filled with wood and shredded paper, rather than the sombre bucket of melted body goo that had actually been recovered from the wreck. The service had been held in a big modern day crematorium, which looked like a cross between a school hall and a local community theatre. The priest was a young man who, after the service, told me at length about his proposals to the Vatican to “digitise Christ and bring the church into the 21st century.” As he blathered on about Bible pods and MP3 sermons, my eyes drifted across the assembled family members, I saw the widow standing looking at the floral tributes. Without saying anything I walked away from the priest, now talking about java based sacraments, and walked towards her. She looked up as I approached and we hugged, I didn’t embrace long as the dressage on her hat was irritating my face. As we pulled apart, I said how sorry I was. She thanked me and then, for what I suspect was the twelfth or fourteenth time explained what had happened.
“It was silly really, he was going for a driving tour, they have a figure of 8 ring road around two of the big cities. The travel company sell it as relaxing weekend for executives. Two 8 hour sessions of driving as fast as possible around the course. Dodging through the civilian traffic. Competing with the other drivers, pretending to be Stirling Moss.” She looked away and blotted a damp eye. “You know” she said “to go like this; it’s what he would have wanted.”

So back at home, sitting on my bed, half in and out of my funeral suit, I looked at the two cards he had given me for DBD inc. Motoring weekends for tired executives? Civilian traffic? Where such things legal? I felt a strange feeling brew up in me, like an angry cup of tea. Why had he died, what had he been doing and who were DBD? So I made a cup of tea and sat down at my PC, I searched the internet for hours searching for a travel company that offered a package like the one the widow had mentioned. Nothing, the more I thought about it the less it seemed likely, if you were to let people drive at high speed through civilian traffic, surely you would limit it to the most alert people? Chronic amphetamine users perhaps. Not tired aging business men with slower reflexes and years of corporate tension stored in their back fat. These thoughts revolved in my head all the way through my microwave chicken korma, over the dulcet tones of Emmerdale, and jarred against Trevor McDonald’s closing piece on News at Ten all about a kitten who had inherited a carjack from a senile owner. That night in bed I resolved to find out more.

Sitting at the dining room table the next morning I placed the two cards side by side and stared at them intently as I ate my muesli. Hoping that somehow some more information would be revealed to me. After showering I decided to call the number, after listening to all the options, I chose to make an appointment. The chirruping young girl I had spoken to had slotted me into a cancelled spot later in the day. I phoned work, telling them I had gastric fever. I had long since realised that my line manager had no stomach for bodily functions, so simply starting to reel off the symptoms provoked a reaction and he had accepted my lie. I got dressed and watched the mornings TV schedule, feeling more and more like I did have gastric fever.

When I arrived at the address the girl had given me, I was at a factory sized building on the industrial estate, I gave the guard my name and he gave me a pass and a map of the car park and showed me the space where I was to park. I parked and for a moment sat in the car, what was I doing here? I didn’t know what this company did or if it was even related to my cousin’s death. After a few minutes I wiped my hands and face, sprayed on some deodorant and got out of the car. I tried to settle my queasy stomach as I walked across the tarmac to the building. While waiting in reception, I took a moment to flick through the brochures on the table. None of them were for DBD, but they did all seem to have a concurrent theme, undertakers, morticians, law firms and accountants. I was halfway through an article about “Walking Mort” in “The Undertaking” when a man crossed the reception floor towards me. “Mr Henry?” I asked dumbly, he smiled, shook my hand and said to follow him. We walked back across reception and into the lift, he pressed a button marked “Introductions.”
“Why aren’t there numbers on the buttons?” I asked.
”Well here at DBD we’re all about efficiency, we pride ourselves on it, rather than have everyone memorise what floor each department is on we simply assign a floor to each department. Doing it this way means that even visitors will know where to go.” I smiled a half smile of appreciation, it was a better system.
“Like the car park spaces” I realised aloud.
“That’s right, by assigning everyone a car park space at the barrier; nobody wastes time driving around looking for the space nearest the front door.” The lift pinged and we stepped out into a lushly appointed open plan environment. The space was dotted with small tables surrounded by armchairs and around the edges were a number of offices, Mr Henry led me to his, once inside he closed the door and motioned me into a seat he sat on the opposite side of the desk.

“First things first” he said, and passed me a plastic wallet over the desk. “I just need you to sign that, the girl in reception should have done it but our normal girl is on maternity leave and the agency only seem to be able to send us people with a restricted mental capacity. In my opinion they’re just a loose association of well dressed clowns.” “Temps?” I asked, “No, recruitment agencies.” I glanced at the form; it had a big Health and safety crest at the top, as if interrupting my thoughts Mr Henry said
“It’s a standard Health and Safety release form. I said in the lift that we are a company that prides itself on efficiency, and sometimes I think the accounting department confuses efficiency with penny pinching. They set up our corporate insurance for the employees only, and given that we’re a customer orientated business it does seem a touch short sighted.” I looked at the form again, I looked up “Don’t worry you’re not in any danger” Mr Henry said. A small smile broke across my face, “You’re not going to attack me with a stapler are you?” “Not unless you want me to” he said, there was a fractional pause before he grinned, which I rightly thought nothing of. I filled in my name at the top of the form and signed and dated it at the bottom. Mr Henry filed it in his cabinet, and sat back down leaning back on his leather swivel chair.

“So what do you know about what we do at DBD?” he asked. “Er, well little bits really, I wanted to get a bigger view of the picture, of the arrangements, that’s why I made the appointment” I lied.
“Here at DBD we don’t see death as any more than an appointment, albeit a terminal one. People across the world die suddenly all the time, even people in drawn out illnesses could die at any time. We aim to minimise the huff and fuss of death, to make it more efficient.” As he talked I fished around for a suitable return gambit, desperately trying to hide my ignorance.
“That’s essentially what I’d heard, what I wasn’t clear on was the specifics, the full package as it were.” He stopped and looked at me, for a horrible moment I thought he was onto me, that he could see the bluffing random path that had brought me into his office but then a smile cracked over his face.
“Why don’t I show you and explain it at the same time? Then I think you’ll have a clearer idea of what we do.”

As we walked back to the lifts I took a moment to try and settle myself, I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans and tried to take deeper breaths to settle the knot in my stomach. Once back in the lift I took longer to look at the panel, there was a button for accounts, personnel, finance, goods in and the one where we were heading, factory floor.
“The building is actually split into two parts” Mr Henry said “this third of the building is split into separate office floors, as you’ve just seen.” He turned around to face me, “but the other two thirds is open space where we actually get to grips with servicing our customers.” He took a step closer and said “That’s where we’re heading now.” For a moment I thought I was going to break down and cry, there was nothing in his demeanour to imply menace in what he had said, but in a way that only filled me with dread.

I fell backwards as the hitherto unseen doors at the back of the lift opened. As I hit the floor; all I could think about was the underground at Chalk Farm. Mr Henry broke into a grin and helped me up; he assured me I wasn’t the first, or last, person that was going to make that mistake. As I straitened myself I looked up, in front of me was a giant cube, about 200 ft in length. The cube had an exoskeleton of running tracks and at its base where a number of lifts, similar to the ones that window cleaners use on tower blocks and skyscrapers. As I was taking this in I realised Mr Henry had been talking “…and so you see this is our factory floor, where the first step of our business takes place.” He looked at me and realised I’d missed half of what he’d said.
“As I was saying, this is our cube, it’s subdivided into smaller cubes of 50ft, 64 of them, however, we only use about half, the other half are used for storage and as you can imagine cleaning and sterilising equipment. We also have some remote monitoring cubes for longer term clients. Would you like to see inside a cube?” I paused for a moment, what did he mean? I felt like something was dawning in me, the answer was inside that cube. I nodded and we walked over to one of the lifts, as we ascended, I tried to see through the glass but it was darkened. We juddered to a halt on the top row, and Mr Henry stepped past me to a small control panel. He pressed at some of the controls and said
“This one’s in use, I think we’re in time. The gentleman in here certainly has gone with a very creative solution. I think you’ll enjoy it.” He tapped a few more buttons and the glass began to clear. The scene revealed to me was astounding. I could barely drink it all in.

Within the 50 ft cube appeared to be a landscape stretching several miles, desert land, and a man, tied to a post. He had been beaten and was in need of a shave, his suit had been ripped and he was gagged and blindfolded. I stared. From beneath us several men walked towards him, dressed in khaki military garb. One stepped forward and removed the blind and gag, he began shouting at the man, but I couldn’t hear what. The man tied to the post wasn’t responding to him and just seemed to be wearily drinking in the situation. Then all at once he looked right at me, but with no recognition I stepped back.
“Don’t worry, he can’t see us. We use a membrane thin plasma screen to project his surroundings, but as we have no light shining on us, and we’re behind the screen, we can see him but he can’t see us.” I turned back to the cube, four of the khaki men had formed a line in front of the post man, the other khaki man stood to one side. He shouted something and the four men stood to attention, I suddenly realised with the clarity of cold vodka where this was going. At the next command the firing squad shouldered their rifles and at the final command, executed him.

I was now cold and sweaty kneeling on the floor of the lift, as we descended the side of the cube. I was speechless, no longer hiding the sickness in my stomach or the cold fear sweat of my skin. As we bumped to the ground Mr Henry helped me up and we proceeded back to the introductions floor. We went into his office, a jug of water and ice had appeared on his desk along with two tall glasses. Mr Henry sat me down and poured me a glass; I drank it down, closed my eyes and let the chair absorb my weight.
“It shakes people up when they see it; nobody can really believe until they see for themselves. It’s like the beauty of Machu Pichu or the Sistine chapel. Brochures just don’t do it justice.”
“You kill people. You don’t just take care of the after death inconveniences, you, you take care of the people themselves.” It was all I could do to bring the words out of my mouth.
“Not at all” said Mr Henry “we facilitate a solution to life, whereby the client can put all of their arrangements in order, make time for any special arrangements and then choose the manner of their departure.”
He paused to look into my now open eyes, “You see nobody enjoys having their loved ones snatched away from them, nobody wants to endure months of treatment for an illness that will only kill them in the end anyway, what we provide is an efficient and enjoyable euthanasia.” It was too much, my mind snapped, “You could even decide what your last words where to be.”
“Exactly” he said “no more stupid last words, people can take time to craft something special, something they can be remembered for.” I sat up feeling some of my strength returning, I poured myself another glass of water.
“I don’t know though, I prefer the off the cuff or the ridiculous in last words, wouldn’t it be more representative of life if your last words where ‘I keep thinking it’s Wednesday’ rather than some prosaic verse about the….whatever life or death is about.” My breathing still felt heavy but my stomach had subsided in its clenching and now I could focus.

“Everybody fantasises about death, about the manner in which they’d like to go. People are scared, they don’t want to spend months of chemo therapy if they get Cancer or endless experimental drug combinations if they get HIV or have their heart replaced with that of a pig. People are scared of getting old, of losing their dignity, of spending the last 5 years of their lives in a home, a holding pen for the reaper. Soiling yourself and being washed by young, well meaning strangers who cannot imagine the depth of your crushing resentment of them. I have seen people walk out of these offices with a look of blissful satisfaction most people would mistake for a heroin high. I am proud of the work that we do, we help people take a stand against nature, against destiny, we empower people.” As he spoke images rushed through my mind, I had cancer and AIDS, I was dying in a residential home, tubes in my tender places, a young woman looking at me with painted on smile and pity soaked eyes as she washed the caked faeces of me in an old tin bath. I realised that I was scared.
“So tell me, how do you fantasise going?” he asked. I took a moment, finally rising up to a full sitting position.
“Suddenly. I’d want it to be a surprise, a ‘here one minute, gone the next’ kind of thing” I said, I wasn’t sure that it was entirely true, but in light of the awful alternative I had imagined, it seemed best.
“Presumably moments after you utter something completely daft?” Mr Henry said in a way just the right side of condescending. I nodded in agreement.

He produced some more forms from his desk and talked me through them. There were three main forms, a notice to my solicitor stating that in return for arranging all my post death appointments and expenses DBD were entitled to 20% of my estate, the second was a notification for DBD of what I wanted. I specified a sudden death, with banal last words, I was to be cremated and have my ashes dispersed across Beachy Head and the wake was to be held at my local pub. Then Mr Henry passed me the third form and for a moment I stared incredulously at it, it was an evaluation form.
“You want me to give you feedback on my experience?” I said.
“We find it’s easier to get it now than it would be later.” I filled it out praising the building and the company and, ticking the “poor" box for Mr Henry and his afternoons work. I passed the forms back and finally felt my strength return to full. That was it; I had literally signed my life away.

Or had I?

“How is this legal? Nothing I’ve signed gives you the right to kill me or absolve you of any legal recourse” I asked almost angrily.
“Unfortunately you did, the notary you signed when you first arrived in my office, it’s not just a health and safety form for this building and it’s premises, it also nullifies us of any responsibility for injury or death resulting from any of our products or services” he said “It’s amazing what people will sign without reading” He added almost matter of factly. I realised that he was right, here was a man working for a company, an efficient company, so efficient that they could have killed me pretty much anytime I had been there. I almost pitied poor Mr Henry, I had wandered like a startled fawn into his path and it had been an easy matter to pick me off and earn the company it’s share of my death. Does he get commission based bonuses? I wondered. Were all his clients this easily manipulated, or sometimes did he have to try a little harder, manoeuvre them a little more, eulogise a little harder about the merit of pre ordained death.

I stood back up with only a slight tremble left in my legs; Mr Henry stood opposite me and walked around to open the door, and walked me back to the lift.
“When will it happen? “ I asked.
“Well it’s hard to say, you’ve chosen a surprise death and if I tell you it won’t be a surprise, we have a design team that work on that sort of thing. I promise they’ll come up with something special and unique for you though.” We got into the lift and he pressed the reception button, the smooth ride down was silent, as we stepped out Mr Henry turned to face me, “there’s a bathroom there if you wish to use it before you leave.” He shook my hand and turned back into the lift, his demeanour never once cracking never a flinching sign of sympathy. I wandered over to the bathroom, the water I had drunk was now pressing at my bladder.

I stood over the urinal with my hot sweaty forehead pressed against the cool ceramic tiles of the bathroom. Listening to the echoing sound of urine draining away. I zipped up and stood in front of the sink staring at myself. The strip light above the mirror casting parts of my face into darkness. Then I saw it, I looked relieved in a way, there seemed no tension in my shoulders and my eyes seemed to be drinking the images in, I couldn’t help but smile, the grin breaking across my face like the cracks in the glass of an aquarium seconds from bursting. This was it, I was feeling Mr Henry’s heroin high, a thousand thoughts pervaded my mind, I could quit my job, visit friends I hadn’t seen in years, spend my savings on that trip to Sharm El Sheikh I’d always wanted, go scuba diving, tell my neighbour that I’d heard him and his gay lover screaming out each and every night his wife was away, I could, well I could do anything I wanted.

As I walked back through reception I heard the distant sound of the receptionist answering the phone in broken Essex English, the gentle squeak of my trainers and of the humming ever present air conditioning. It really was like being on a drug high, everything seemed a hundred times more amplified and real. As I walked through the front doors and across the patio I was greeted by golden crispy sunlight poking through my eyes and a slow breeze in my hair. I paused for a moment, I heard a window opening and turned around to look up, it was Mr Henry. He shouted down to me.
“What’s the plural of Mongoose? Is it Mongooses or Mongeese?”
I paused.
“Is it Mongeese?” I shouted up.

That’s when the van hit me, killed me and fulfilled Mr Henry’s promise all at once.