2008-10-01 - 3:41 p.m.
Jack's Morbid Afternoon Thoughts
A few weeks ago, I was looking through the yellow pages for a place to professionally sharpen my knife.
It was something I found at an estate sale. It had no edge left. At all. Still, I liked it. All it needed was a little TLC.
After they were done with it, I am proud to say it is a formidable little piece of metal now.
Anyway while I was flipping through (it is kind of strange and almost old fashioned to do a Google search by hand) I found the funeral section.
Funeral homes. Funeral planning services. We do cremations.
I can not say why exactly, but I began reading. Then thinking.
A strange feeling came over me. One day I would be reading something like this again. But just not just in passing.
One day, if I have not committed suicide, I will be making plans for the end of my natural life.
I will be deciding how I want the final credits to roll.
It was hard enough doing this for my cat, during his last days.
Imagine doing it for yourself.
What does it feel like to be looking at death real estate? That looks like a nice place to decompose. Beautiful.
How does it feel to choose a human bakery to put your dead body into an oven? Reduce you to a few basic organic elements. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. It isn't really a thought that keeps you warm at night.
I have a feeling they would not let you see the facilities. Let you see how "sausage is really made". Most people probably would not want to know. For some reason, I would.
I know how it is done. At least in very modern facilties. But I still would like to see the facility that would be processing and rendering me to dust.
Catalog examples of precious loved ones made into exquisite baked goods is what they want you to see.
It is what we don't see that matters.
As morbid as I am, I can not imagine what an mortician's mind is like.
To have a degree in mortuary sciences, you must be intelligent. Perhaps criminally intelligent. Slight insanity is almost a given. If you are not insane going into it, in time you will be.
What made you decide that your calling in life was "human decomposer".
In nature, when an animal dies, decomposers of all forms make their living and their survival breaking down the body. Nature takes care of itself.
In our world, when someone dies, it becomes a huge, complicated ordeal. Nature does not take care of us. We have to do something with the body. We can not have corpses laying around.
And so enter the human decomposers. The sometimes corrupt vultures of the funeral business. They make their living and survival off the dead.
And the broken left in their wake.
It is hard to imagine what life must be like for these people. Living and working with one foot in the shadow of the other side.
Getting up early each day. Rising with your mortality. Sharing a cup of coffee and carpooling together.
Working long hours in the sterile, fluorescent insanity lighting of a death lab. Processing an endless parade of meat. In some ways you are a seasoned chef. Expertly preparing someone's remains to their tastes and last wishes. Your expertise is very important to someone who is not even here anymore.
I wonder what lunch break is like.
Sitting outside in the sunshine you still can see, but might be too busy to really feel. Eating your dead meat sandwhich. Maybe smoking a cigarette. The irony makes you laugh a little. You of all people know better. But life is short. A little morbid humor. If you didn't laugh, you would have lost your mind by now.
There are probably two kinds of morticians.
The unusually positive ones who live every moment. Being so close to death all the time makes them appreciate life. Even if they spend much of that life with the dead.
Then there are the criminally insane would be serial killers.
Again, I am not sure why I am thinking about this.
Jack Is Still Fighting His Antagonist - 2008-10-22
Jack's Recurring Nightmares Of His Antagonist (2) - 2008-10-22
Jack's Recurring Nightmares Of His Antagonist - 2008-10-22
Jack's Titillated Captivation - 2008-10-10
