How 'Bout Some Jitterbug Dancing?
I remember a story I once read. It was called The Last Dead Man, but I cannot remember the host of the mind that spawned it. It was about a man who woke up to discover his coffin being exhumed for cremation. He was well aware of the fact he was dead. No one else really believed he was though, due by and large to the fact that he was walking around and speaking. Never mind the fact that his coffin was over a century old.

In any case, this was a short story. And short stories tend to have a point they try to get across. Especially given the fact that this was Science Fiction. Commentarry is the basis of most Science Fiction - putting forwards a dream of the way something should or could have been, for better or worse. In this world, the population was very carefully conditioned not to fear death. Fear, it was noticed, spawned violence and discent, and the fear of death is one of the most prominant fears to take hold and cause such acts. The dark held no fear for people, and the dead were carefully cremated in large towers or human recycling. All that jazz. That's why the cemetarrys were being exhumed - so that the bodies could be properly disposed of and the land reused. They were almost fanatical about that - they'd found tombs on Mars with mummies inside that they were going to exhume and cremate. Not so big on anthropology or archeology it would seem.

Later in the story, the dead man killed a group of people and tried to convince them to get up and walk around. But they would't do it. He knew he was doing everything right - the problem was that the people he'd killed wouldn't get up. Because they knew they were dead. They'd accepted it and already moved on - They didn't fear death, and their bodies were nothing now that they were no longer alive. They wern't dead though, they were... nothing. There was nothing of them that was left.

Why do I mention this? I guess it just strikes me as an interesting idea. Like Pratchett's 'Whatever you think will happen after death, will happen after death' idea.

Hey, that's all I wanted to say at the moment.


"You're a claustrophobic."
"You want a fist in the mouth? I've never even looked at another guy!"
~ Donatello and Casey Jones, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. The best part of the third movie was Casey trying to teach the samurai to play hockey. ^_^;;
- posted by Washi @ 5:37 pm