Next week, I find a morgue in the basement.

I think I mentioned before that my building is right next to a cemetery (which you get a nice view of from my bedroom window), but what I just learned this week is that we also live next to a hearse garage.

My street sort of dead-ends at my building, so I walk past this garage whenever I'm going to or from my flat. I never thought much of it before--I just assumed that it was a private garage where people in the adjacent buildings would keep their cars. I did occasionally notice that the cars I would see there were very shiny, black, and sort of an odd shape, but I just figured they were very fancy cars, which was why their owners would keep them in a private garage, rather than on the street. It didn't seem that odd.

It seems pretty ordinary from the outside.

Then, the other night, my flatmates informed me that these oddly-shaped cars are hearses, and this garage is where they are stored. They also pointed out the gray van, often parked outside, labeled "PRIVATE AMBULANCE"--this is apparently used to transport bodies. I now mentally refer to it as the Corpsemobile.

I was quite surprised by this information, so the next day I decided to take a look. The garage door is usually open, but there's also a very snappily dressed guard on duty most of the time, so I couldn't exactly walk right up and start peering around.

I did manage to get this picture

You can't really see the actual hearses here, but you can see the stacks of coffins (which appear to be shrinkwrapped or something) at the back.

My flatmates are all a little creeped out by the whole "being surrounded by death" thing, but I'm more amazed at my obliviousness than anything else.