There were things in the world Lance Dyer knew were never meant to be understood. Yet, it was his job to understand, and he did it well.

Today’s story is the first of two parts of “The Life and Death of August Corcoran” by Ari Yena, who is making their debut on The Voice of Dog. You can find more of their work on their Patreon, or follow them on Twitter for more updates.

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You’re listening to The Voice of Dog. I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,

and Today’s story is the first of two parts of

“The Life and Death

of August Corcoran”

by Ari Yena, who is making their debut on The Voice of Dog.

You can find more of their work on their Patreon,

or follow them on Twitter for more updates.

Please enjoy “The Life and Death of August Corcoran”

by Ari Yena, Part 1

of 2 August Corcoran was unmistakably dead,

and that was that.

That was the thing Lance Dyer thought of before anything else.

It was, in fact, all he could think of,

that August Corcoran had died,

because seeing so much death in your life may make it easier to see the bodies of those who had passed,

but it also gives you a greater appreciation for their life

and for the great loss that has been suffered.

Some may have said that Lance was too soft for the job—

that perhaps his care might make it more difficult to see things as they were,

but Lance only thought it would help to give closure to him

and the loved ones of the deceased.

Lance dipped his head

in a silent respect to the ermine.

Lance was intruding on his space, after all.

And, while Lance did not specifically believe in any higher power,

he had not entirely ruled out the possibility that August might be somewhere now,

watching him, because he understood that there are things about this life

that were never meant to be understood.

Yet, it was Lance’s job to understand,

and he did that job

very well. The chair on which August Corcoran was slumped,

much like most other things in the small apartment, could be seen from the door.

It faced it, even,

almost as though it was greeting any guests.

Though, with the state of the apartment, it would have rather surprised Lance to come to the conclusion that August had very many guests.

It wasn’t as though things were strewn about, in that messy and unwelcoming way he had found

so many scenes in before,

with the sorts of people who holed themselves up in their apartments for weeks on end as they slowly deteriorated.

There were no scraps of food,

no stains of any bodily fluids,

of which Lance was thankful,

as he had seen all kinds,

no cigarette butts or beer bottles piling up.

And Lance noted each of these things with some assurance to himself,

as he thought it was just as helpful to define a scene by what was missing

just as much as what he saw,

because in this particular instance

it could help him gather the picture of someone who led a life that was,

in some ways, put together,

and, in some ways,

healthy. It was those unwelcoming details of the room

that gave him pause

in defining the ermine fully.

August wore a collared shirt and slacks,

though the collar was unbuttoned

and even up around the back of his neck, in a way that Lance suspected

he was not privy to.

The wrinkles gave a clear reason for the slight fraying of the threads,

though that fraying was especially prominent around the cuff.

Compared to the right,

it clung much less tightly around his wrist,

even given that both were buttoned.

The left was fastened to the cuff

by a loose thread of yellow, contrasting, as Lance saw it,

with the deep blue of the shirt itself,

and certainly not matching the black by which all of the other stitching was done.

The shirt hung fairly loosely,

as Lance noticed,

particularly in length,

as though it were intended to be tucked in.

And, to that expectation, it was,

bunching up below his belt

only behind his waist.

That belt, itself, was in poor shape, or perhaps just

well loved. A few additional holes of what must have been

the ermine’s own creation

extended past those that were manufactured into it,

and even that furthest one

seemed as though it wasn’t quite enough to hold the garment to him with any sort of security, and,

judging by the bunched up waist of his pants,

that was something he needed.

Finally, Lance noticed,

the ermine sunk heavily into the plush below him,

so much so that the very top of its tan fabric covering was nearly higher than the tops of August’s thighs,

at least on the outer edges of the seat.

Lance wanted not to look very much further,

as this was all he could gather without further invading the personal space of the ermine,

who might not have smelled particularly great while he was alive.

He was also meant not to disturb the body,

to preserve the scene,

and he had every intention of doing so.

The room at large was rather empty.

A couch, looking much newer than all else in the room

and very out of place in its brighter coloring, sat along one wall.

A table in front of it looked as though it’s owner had been passed

for far longer, seeing many seasons of loneliness in its thick layer of dust.

In one corner towered unrealistically high piles of papers

and letters and envelopes and all sorts of things one might toss aside and never look at again,

but Lance was quick to discover

that that wasn’t the only sort of note.

Indeed, there were three piles set about

and each had a very specific purpose.

The tallest by far seemed to contain the most eclectic and colorful envelopes and cards.

Lance learned more about the town

than about August Corcoran.

He learned about the new donut shop a few blocks away,

and he learned that the town was rebudgeting its taxpayer dollars

and where he might be able to attend a meeting,

(since passed), to give his word,

and he learned, if the touting praise on the postcard were to be believed,

who would get the job done with the best rates and make sure it was done right

if he needed a plumber.

The second biggest pile,

just to the side of that first,

held a slightly more uniform look in color and size of its envelopes,

and some were even torn open at the top,

though those were mostly those on the bottom of the pile.

In the middle, each envelope was opened, carefully and neatly, with a blade with an edge sharp enough that it took even an astute caracal like Lance

a few passes to realize they’d been opened at all.

Then, the top half of the pile sat entirely unopened.

Lance could easily determine what sort of letters these were, though,

even if he hadn’t been able to open all of those at the bottom. ‘Hill

Family Mortgage,’ ‘Faulkner

Medical Group,’ and ‘Zee

and Associates Lending Firm’ gave Lance an idea before he could even parse them

‘URGENT’ in bold red lettering.

Sitting right between that second pile

and the only space on the table free of that thick layer of dust

was the third and final pile,

this one the most curious of all.

It was perfectly uniform, every single letter the same boring white

and the same standard size.

Each and every one remained sealed,

as though August Corcoran

didn’t want their secrets,

though to know so assuredly that he didn’t

would lead one to believe that he knew very well what was inside.

And it would be rather difficult not to,

as they were addressed to August Corcoran from

‘National Center for Disability Insurance.’

Lance Dyer, being a wise young man,

nodded with a sagely look towards the resting August Corcoran,

and looked over the room one last time.

He inspected the couch, but found nothing. He found

nothing under the table, and nothing else interesting about the ermine himself.

And that was that.

There was no television for him to inspect,

to see what channel might have come on when it awakened.

There were no art pieces or decorations

or even a clock for him to glean anything from.

Just a dim light,

an ugly couch, a dusty table,

an old recliner, and a dead ermine.

With another dip of his head,

to bid August Corcoran farewell for now,

Lance Dyer found his way to the kitchen.

He felt stifled the moment he stepped inside.

There was just enough space to walk, and very little more.

It didn’t help that there were no windows, no openings of any kind apart from the one that allowed Lance into the room.

The ceiling was low,

and the cabinets which lined both walls

felt as though they were jutting out into the space

meant for him. The fridge couldn’t open at the same time as the oven,

though both could hardly open very far at all without touching the counter on the opposite side of the walkway.

Dishes filled the sink,

even going so far as to spill out into the counter itself,

though still managing to confine themselves into one small corner.

The only other thing on the counter, anywhere at all,

was a bowl, etched glass or something of the like

made to resemble crystal but certainly not the real thing,

stacked high with oranges and peaches and apples

that looked plenty fresh,

as though they’d been picked

that very day. Yet,

in stark contrast,

the fridge was near empty,

and the freezer full of only single serve frozen meals,

certainly not implying an interest in his health

or particularly fresh food.

It seemed as though he wasn’t just trying to make a change all too late, though.

A search through the trash can,

(a favorite of Lance’s,

as very little can tell you more about a person),

revealed that it was a long time habit.

Indeed, the nearly full bag was layered very neatly.

A discarded TV dinner,

atop an orange peel,

atop a discarded TV dinner,

atop an orange peel,

and on into the very bottom.

August Corcoran, it seemed, was a creature of habit.

Lance had suspected as much,

but a look through someone’s trash

will always tell you something, and he was rather glad to have that fact confirmed.

Very little else in the kitchen was of interest to Lance, though,

apart from that seeing the mess that was the ermine’s stovetop

reminded Lance that his own needed cleaning.

Suddenly, the kitchen was filled with music,

the sort of which the apartment, as Lance thought,

very well might never have heard.

It was a pop song,

the chorus of the number one pop hit

from a few months before.

Lance didn’t usually enjoy that sort of music, but, sometimes, one just stuck out.

It was certainly rare that anyone used music of any sort as a ringtone any more,

and that was especially true for text messages,

but Lance enjoyed the brightness

it might bring to his day.

Rousseau wanted an update.

It had always bothered Lance how impatient his boss could be,

but he knew what they said about squirrels.

He just liked to be meticulous, and for his work to be uninterrupted.

And, for all the complaints about the time it took Lance to complete his search of a home,

Rousseau had never once complained about what he gathered in his time spent.

At times, Lance didn’t bother to text Rousseau back,

knowing that he’d have his answer soon enough. But something about August Corcoran wasn’t making sense to Lance,

and, while he could find his answer at any time,

he still wanted to learn whatever he could.

He owed it to the ermine.

If he was going to rifle through August Corcoran’s things,

to invade his personal haven in which he spent so much of his time,

Lance wanted to do him the justice

of making certain to contact anyone

who he would want to know of his passing,

and to make sure to portray him

accurately as the man he truly was.

There wasn’t much that Lance felt comfortable writing in stone yet,

so a small update would have to suffice for now,

and he gave it with some difficulty in finding just the right words.

Lance, not the sort to dwell on things for very long,

dove right back into his work as the text was sent,

and found himself in the bedroom

of the deceased. The bedroom,

at times, could tell you everything you needed to know at a glance,

and, at times, required some very serious digging around.

Knowing what he knew of August Corcoran,

Lance Dyer suspected the latter to be the case at hand,

and, he saw upon entering the drab room,

that he was correct.

The walls were that same eggshell color many homes or apartments or new rental properties seemed to love,

if only because of how universally boring it was.

The sheets of his bed were gray,

as were the pillowcases, as were the blankets,

of which there were several in their own little piles on the bed,

as though each one had been given its own turn and unceremoniously pushed aside.

A lamp on the side table was already on.

And, the room looked very open in that light,

only just bright enough

as the rest of the apartment was, because very little else was in it at all.

Lance thought it was strange to find an apartment with no television in sight at all,

and no sign one had ever been there,

but that was certainly the case.

Instead, the top of August’s dresser

was lined with a very modest collection of books,

neatly lined up between two rather minimalist bookends.

Each and every book looked nearly untouched.

There was not a crack in a spine,

and not a corner was bent,

like each and every one was on display for Lance to buy,

brand new and enticing,

and opening one gave Lance the very same sensations, new book smell and all.

Two books sat outside of the bookends, though,

almost lovingly laid out atop the dresser,

that were nothing like the rest.

To call them well-loved would be doing them a disservice.

The first, a hardcover copy of a book Lance had never heard of, titled

‘The Threat to Our Lives.’

Many of its pages were dog-eared, or had clearly been at some point,

and even the edges of the cover itself were starting to come apart,

as though it had been shoved into a bag, perhaps time and time again.

The book certainly was old enough for it.

At least 30 years, by Lance’s estimation,

maybe more. And, indeed,

a glance inside the cover told him he was right to think it could be more— 1984 was the publishing date,

before even Lance himself,

but not August Corcoran.

The ermine, if Lance was any better at estimating ages of people than books, (which, he thought, he was),

would have been somewhere between his late teens and mid twenties when it was published.

Lance allowed the book to fall open where it might,

right to whatever page saw the most love.

He had to hold back a snicker, though,

when the page was titled,

as bold as what Lance had assumed it was claiming, ‘The

Homosexual Agenda.’

Lance didn’t need to read the text under it to understand what it was trying to say.

His knowledge of what the world was like at the time

served to tell him all he needed to know in that regard.

He was far more concerned with the highlighting,

the underlining, the notes in the margins, much of which

made some portions of the text almost entirely illegible,

when they bled through the back side, or when the book might have been closed too soon after dropping the pen.

Some of the text, too, was blacked out with a bit more intent.

But those notes weren’t quite notes at all—

they were a conversation.

If the responsive tone of much of the words

weren’t enough to indicate as much,

the vastly differing handwritings were.

The first writer wrote in a very practiced script

and with a steady hand, and it was clear that any smudging that happened occurred after the fact.

The second writer

interested Lance Dyer far more, at least stylistically.

Some of their words ran into each other

and in a very loose and fast style, while others it was clear by the pressure of the pen alone,

enough to sometimes bleed through a whole page,

that they were making a concerted effort

to slow it down and keep it neat.

It was rare to find the two styles in one note,

and, for the most part,

the styles would switch every few notes.

Despite the intensity of the rhetoric contained in the pages,

both writers seemed to be having fun.

Whether they were refuting the words contained in the passages,

or perhaps they were mimicking the haughty tone the original author took.

The words, full of hatred,

and bile, and fear,

became something for them to find joy in.

The joy of life, Lance thought,

and the joy of living it

the only way you knew how.

Lance allowed the book to close gently,

deciding that he had learned all he could without carefully reading through the margins of every single page,

and turned his attention

to the second book,

a much smaller one

by the name of ‘Fun

Home.’ His strategy of testing where a book wanted to be opened to

proved useful once more,

when Lance found a small folded piece of paper

right around the center, between two pages

that were entirely clean of dog-ears or folds or slight tears,

as though they’d been protecting the page within.

Though, if they had been, Lance thought,

they weren’t doing a very good job–

the folded paper seemed about to come apart, each fold looking as thin as if it had been folded

and folded again

hundreds of times.

Lance was even more careful

than he thought possible

as he unfurled the page,

laying it out flat on the dresser

to read to himself.

This was the first of two parts of

“The Life and Death of August Corcoran”

by Ari Yena, read for you by Khaki,

your faithful fireside companion.

Tune in next time

to find out how [characters resolve the cliffhanger or other teaser].

As always, you can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,

or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for listening

to The Voice of Dog.