And All the Earth a Grave | Page 2

rushed out to
buy.
Christmas was not going to be a failure after all. Department store
managers who had, grudgingly and under strong sales pressure, made
space for a single coffin somewhere at the rear of the store, now rushed
to the telephones like touts with a direct pronouncement from a horse.
Everyone who possibly could got into the act. Grocery supermarkets
put in casket departments. The Association of Pharmaceutical Retailers,
who felt they had some claim to priority, tried to get court injunctions
to keep caskets out of service stations, but were unsuccessful because
the judges were all out buying caskets. Beauty parlors showed real
ingenuity in merchandising. Roads and streets clogged with delivery
trucks, rented trailers, and whatever else could haul a coffin. The Stock
Market went completely mad. Strikes were declared and settled within
hours. Congress was called into session early. The President got
authority to ration lumber and other materials suddenly in
starvation-short supply. State laws were passed against cremation,
under heavy lobby pressure. A new racket, called boxjacking,
blossomed overnight.
The Advertising Manager who had put the thing over had been fighting
with all the formidable weapons of his breed to make his plant
managers build up a stockpile. They had, but it went like a toupee in a
wind tunnel. Competitive coffin manufacturers were caught napping,
but by Wednesday after Thanksgiving they, along with the original one,
were on a twenty-four hour, seven-day basis. Still only a fraction of the
demand could be met. Jet passenger planes were stripped of their seats,
supplied with Yankee gold, and sent to plunder the world of its coffins.
It might be supposed that Christmas goods other than caskets would
take a bad dumping. That was not so. Such was the upsurge of
prosperity, and such was the shortage of coffins, that nearly
everything--with a few exceptions--enjoyed the biggest season on
record.

On Christmas Eve the frenzy slumped to a crawl, though on Christmas
morning there were still optimists out prowling the empty stores. The
nation sat down to breathe. Mostly it sat on coffins, because there
wasn't space in the living rooms for any other furniture.
There was hardly an individual in the United States who didn't have, in
case of sudden sharp pains in the chest, several boxes to choose from.
As for the rest of the world, it had better not die just now or it would be
literally a case of dust to dust.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
Of course everyone expected a doozy of a slump after Christmas. But
our Advertising Manager, who by now was of course Sales Manager
and First Vice President also, wasn't settling for any boom-and-bust.
He'd been a frustrated victim of his choice of industries for so many
years that now, with his teeth in something, he was going to give it the
old bite. He gave people a short breathing spell to arrange their coffin
payments and move the presents out of the front rooms. Then, late in
January, his new campaign came down like a hundred-megatonner.
Within a week, everyone saw quite clearly that his Christmas models
were now obsolete. The coffin became the new status symbol.
The auto industry was of course demolished. Even people who had
enough money to buy a new car weren't going to trade in the old one
and let the new one stand out in the rain. The garages were full of
coffins. Petroleum went along with Autos. (Though there were those
who whispered knowingly that the same people merely moved over
into the new industry. It was noticeable that the center of it became
Detroit.) A few trucks and buses were still being built, but that was all.
Some of the new caskets were true works of art. Others--well, there
was variety. Compact models appeared, in which the occupant's feet
were to be doubled up alongside his ears. One manufacturer pushed a
circular model, claiming that by all the laws of nature the foetal

position was the only right one. At the other extreme were virtual
houses, ornate and lavishly equipped. Possibly the largest of all was the
"Togetherness" model, triangular, with graduated recesses for Father,
Mother, eight children (plus two playmates), and, in the far corner
beyond the baby, the cat.
The slump was over. Still, economists swore that the new boom
couldn't last either. They reckoned without the Advertising Manager,
whose eyes gleamed brighter all the time. People already had coffins,
which they polished and kept on display, sometimes in the new
"Coffin-ports" being added to houses. The Advertising Manager's
reasoning was direct and to the point. He must get people to use the
coffins; and now he had all the money to work with that he could use.
The new note was woven in so gradually