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 didnt 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. Couldnt 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 wouldnt 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 didnt 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.
No! Brian is wrong!
Plus how could he know when he is working all the time!
Yes, you missed the part that said ‘unedited’. I originally had him with brains splattered, but then decided to have him killed here by death magic (brains splattering comes later).
I forgot to take out that line that you found.
Thanks for the feedback.
“I didnt 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.”
“There were no readily visible bullet wounds, arrows, blisters, boils, or signs of electrocution.”
Am I missing something? In the previous paragraph you said that he had a bullet hole in his head, and in the next paragraph he’s trying to figure out how he died because there’s no bullet holes.