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In their first year at King’s College, the students are tasked with preparing corpses. They earn their right to perform autopsies by showing first that they can respectfully clean and handle the recently deceased. They will soon be embalming organs, transporting cadavers, and cataloging any and all weaknesses on their subject in meticulous detail. These chores determine which students can stomach the work of later years, many failing to do so.
When John Watson reaches his fourth year, he should not have been repeating those tasks. He continues, though, at least once every fortnight. There are sometimes not enough first-years available and someone needed to prepare the bodies for the classes. His peers would blanche when asked, above such labor once it was no longer required for their grades. John did not ever consider it a chore.
Nor does Friday.
It is how the two got to know one another, midway into their second year. The pair would share the quiet hours of the morgue working on their individual bodies until debating theory and comparing notes became preferable to prolonged silences. They were familiar to one another with only their coursework in common, yet while they performed the rituals of measuring and coating or cutting, that relationship grew. Strengthened. They sought opinions from one another on their projects and professors. It only made sense to merge their workload together, the two soon processing more cadavers in a day than anyone else. Friday’s penmanship was neater so he would take up recording what John dictated. John’s hands were steadier so he would handle the scalpel.
John did these tasks as he felt the job required someone to do it, but he learns that Friday’s motives are different. “Less pure,” chuckles the other. Friday wants to impress his professors. The plan is to get what he wants when he asks them for liberties later. With a wink, he suggests Watson keep that in mind.
Like all the things Friday says, Watson does. He begins to assert himself. His successes surprise him; his grades improve as he perfects his knowledge with the dead. Soon he is almost at the top of the class. Almost.
He doesn’t envy the one ahead of him.
Regardless of grades, there will always be an opening for John in the morgue and the young man had always had difficulty in saying no. When Friday no longer needs to favours in order to manipulate his instructors, he comes down to do the work anyhow because that is where Watson will be.
They wash the dead. They weight the dead. They inspect the dead inside and out, penning reports. The two begin to manage the inflow and outflow of the bodies for the college administrators. They are told that once they graduate, if they are willing to pursue similar responsibilities, there is work for Certifiers: men who grade and assess which cadavers are ripe for resurrection. They would choose which corpses will be repurposed for specific places. It is a secure occupation that pays quite well.
Friday has other plans, though. Of course, then, John does too.
On their last pre-class cleaning, Friday says almost wistfully, “We’ll never have to do this again,” as if the idea has struck him suddenly. The early morning gloom keeps the sun from breaking through the morgue’s high windows. The beakers do not yet gleam with captured light. They will fail to warm the floating organs within once the beams shine in. The body under Watson’s hand is cold. Formaldehyde clings to their noses. Their clothes.
They graduate in one week.
“Forgive me. It’s just strange, how time passes,” continues Friday, catching John waiting for more on the thought. His pen resumes its scrawl. “We’ve done this so many times, but this is the last. Then it will be us in our own lab. We'll never have to come back here.”
--
Friday is wrong.
John stands in the room of King’s Cross as the student gratefully vacates. John’s volunteered himself to clean and process the body.
He is not alone in the silent room.
Friday is with him.
This time, though, John does all the work. A chore that is not beneath him, despite being the top of his class.