Back at the North Country Morgue, a 27-year-old woman revealed how her time has been since Karl has unleashed nearly half his staff to the waiting room.
“I see them all standing there, on their phones. That’s not very professional service,” Linda Marshal said.
Karl, aware of the situation said, “I assure you that the more staff we have, the better our patients will be treated. Food, love, tender care, and a welcoming atmosphere.” Away from the lady, he said, “This lady is ignorant of what our morgue offers. Books, bouquets, sandwiches, and bread.”
“My knee!”
A woman, about 48 years of age according to the wrinkled furrows in her brows, just hit her knee on a pyramid shelf display, featuring the morgue’s uncanny selection of cinnamon rolls, cookies, and other treats to help patients console their woeful minds.
“These gosh darn things are gonna cause splinters! In my legs! To heck with this morgue and all who work here!”
Karl, after ensuring the woman who just capsized her leg was out of earshot, said, “Walking around like the dead folk, tripping into everything? What else can you expect?”
“That’s what I’m talking about!”
Candice, up on the sandwich-making counter, exclaimed. “Four points for Candice, and none for you bozos!”
Linda Marshal stood gawking at the scene. “All I wanted was a turkey sandwich with a cherry on top, and” – she pointed at Candice – “she got all up in my face, telling me I would have to wait a moment for the turkey to be sliced.”
“The customer isn’t always right, you know,” Candice declared. “You just have to face the facts. No matter how often you come in here, looking for a fight with fate will always give you trouble. How’s that for a cherry on top?”
Candice used to work with Linda Marshal at a blood bank, where Candice was Linda’s assistant in extracting a donor’s blood.
“Hand me those tools,” Linda would say to her. “Get me that pipette.” But then Candice discovered what Linda did with all the donated blood – take it to the Club 99 bar on Route 13 and, as a bartender, infuse it with everyone’s blood orange drinks. No one had seemed to notice the new ingredient in the concoction for some time, but also, no one heard from those people again…
“You just shut up, and make me my sandwich, or I’m outta here.”
“We don’t need people like you anyway, being dishonest about your work,” Candice replied, grabbing a cherry and smashing it into the bread, its red gooey guts smearing all over. She grabbed a container and tossed the sandwich inside, then threw it like a Frisbee at Linda. “You have places to be that aren’t here. Good. Bye.”
Linda snatched her sandwich from off the floor, raised an unmentionable finger at Candice, and stormed to the cash register.
From aside, Karl commented, “We need more workers like her, bold enough to tell customers how it is. Without her, they would not know their place in the world.”
Karl said, “Faulty service? At times. But impatience draws a new sword, and that sword brings about death.”
North Country Morgue 
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