Playing With Dead Things: The Mummification of Beavis I, Part Seven: We Screw Up. Again.

Today was supposed to be the day Beavis came out of the natron and we, Matt and myself, finished the mummfication.

Supposed to be.

I hope you guys turn out to be more patient than you look, cuz there's going to be a slight delay, due to, uh, unforseen juiciness. To elaborate: Pictures.

Good to go.

So the protective layer of brown butcher paper's been taped to the floor, the ingredients have been gathered, and the incense is burning. Now all we needed was the stiff. We thought we had that, too.

We had no real reason to suspect anything might be wrong, since the reek of decay never once assaulted us from the cabinet Beavis was stewing in for even one of the previous forty days. We smelled something when we got close enough, but it was more inside-of-rat stench multiplied by two than putrefying flesh. So we didn't really look into it seriously... Oops Number 1.

Lookin' good, stud.

After a quick dust-off, Beavis came out of the natron looking more or less exactly how he did when he went in. This was a good sign, it meant we were at least halfway right.

Now available in Extra-Crunchy.

The clods of natron clinging to Beav weren't really out of the ordinary; it's just what would happen if enough moisture was absorbed by the baking soda/salt mixture and drawn away from the corpse. We took that as a second good sign... with one slight exception.

That's Beavis. Even in death, DETERMINED TO BE A FUCKING PROBLEM.

I was pretty worried about Beavis' brain. It was left intact, and I suspected it might ruin the mummification. Turns out the brain wasn't the problem. A lot of fluid was absorbed from the head... you can tell by the build-up of natron in the area... but the clumps tended to be pretty light, barely discolored at all. Everything was going by the book up there. Which is more than I can say for the abdomen. Note the yellow-brown color of the clumps at the incision site. Uh oh.

(crumble crunch sweep sweep uncomfortable noises weird smell)

The natron came off easily enough, with a little coaxing. This gave us a much better look at the body.

Beavis' paws, tail, and visible skin were the color and consistency of beef jerky. His eye sockets has sunken in from the dehydration, and his ears were extremely leathery and tough. His limbs were slightly more mobile then they had been during rigor mortis, but he wasn't about to found a contortionist troupe. Again, by the book. Again, no cause for alarm. But then, we opened him up.

(weird smell weird smell WEIRD SMELL)

While snipping the sutures, I couldn't help but notice that the site of the incision was... well, moist. Alarmingly moist. Unfortunately, catastrophically moist. Moist in ways that mummies are not permitted to be. And that smell was getting stronger.

@%$#&$^%!!!

Well, fuck.

That ain't right.

Turns out those muslin-wrapped packets of natron weren't enough to dry out Beav's body cavity. The muslin was soaked, the natron was mushy, and there was still enough fluid in the abdomen to pool slightly. Half the flesh was black, the other half still pink. Beavis was essentially half-mummified.

I think that the problem might have been the scale of the mummification. Natron was bundled up inside human mummies for ease of removal; not exactly a concern for mummies you can turn upside down and shake vigorously to clean, but I wanted to stick to the customs. The muslin I used might have been too thick, constituting too much wrapping and not enough drying agent. Or maybe we just didn't include enough packets. In any case, we messed up packing the corpse. Oops Number 2.

We were paranoid that Beav might be rotten and ruined due to our incompetence, but he didn't smell that way. He just had that same inside-a-rat stink as always, albeit much stronger. So we've done a little damage control.

The speedbumps on the road to eternity are frequent and annoying and bad for your suspension.

Beavis is, as you might have already guessed, back in the natron, this time with a belly full of the stuff shoveled in by the cup. He's definitely not a lost cause, so don't get paranoid. A couple of pharoahs I could name weren't embalmed until they were well and truly decaying, and they turned out perfectly okay. So no, I'm not abandoning the project, not by a mile. It's just going to take a little longer than I thought.

Story of my life.