The first of a 3000 word short story (untitled & unedited):

For the third time this week, I found myself dead on my office floor. My body was splayed in a most immodest way, legs spread, teeth clamped together and lips pulled back so that I grinned at the heavens like a baboon in heat. I didn’t know what was more disgusting; the smell from my released bowels that soiled my pin-striped trousers, or the paten leather shoes clashing with the satin pants.

A quick nervous glance proved I was alone. Good. Couldn’t have someone seeing me like that. Dead, a poorly coordinated outfit, and smelling like an outhouse.

I stepped over the deceased Dr Penghoul, careful not to track blood across the marble floors. My, if that blood remained too long, it would stain permanently; one of the downsides of marble. And it just wouldn’t do for the undertaker of the Boneyard, the most prestigious Golgotha this side of Calvary to have a blood stained floor. My office needed to present a dignity, an understanding that death was a dignified experience.

I didn’t need esteemed clients divining that I had died on this very floor, a bullet hole in my forehead and my brains splattered on my cherished first edition Hemingways. I paused at my desk, tiny bell in my fingers. But I did not ring it to summon Robert. How did I die this time? I turned on my heel, meeting my dead gaze. The eyes were black marbles sunken in a face seemingly molded of wax and the lips slash marks of red across my sallow complexion.

Everything looked normal.

There were no readily visible bullet wounds, arrows, blisters, boils, or signs of electrocution. Nor did I see any wicked devices of death about my corpse.