And All the Earth a Grave | Page 3

that it is not easy to put a
finger on any one ad and say, "It began here." One of the first was
surely the widely-printed one showing a tattooed, smiling young man
with his chin thrust out manfully, lying in a coffin. He was
rugged-looking and likable (not too rugged for the spindly-limbed to
identify with) and he oozed, even though obviously dead, virility at
every pore. He was probably the finest-looking corpse since Richard
the Lion-Hearted.
Neither must one overlook the singing commercials. Possibly the
catchiest of these, a really cute little thing, was achieved by jazzing up
the Funeral March.
It started gradually, and it was all so un-violent that few saw it as
suicide. Teen-agers began having "Popping-off parties". Some of their
elders protested a little, but adults were taking it up too. The tired, the
unappreciated, the ill and the heavy-laden lay down in growing
numbers and expired. A black market in poisons operated for a little
while, but soon pinched out. Such was the pressure of persuasion that
few needed artificial aids. The boxes were very comfortable. People
just closed their eyes and exited smiling.
The Beatniks, who had their own models of coffin--mouldy, scroungy,
and without lids, since the Beatniks insisted on being seen--placed their

boxes on the Grant Avenue in San Francisco. They died with highly
intellectual expressions, and eventually were washed by the gentle rain.
Of course there were voices shouting calamity. When aren't there? But
in the long run, and not a very long one at that, they availed naught.
* * * * *
It isn't hard to imagine the reactions of the rest of the world. So let us
imagine a few.
The Communist Block immediately gave its Stamp of Disapproval,
denouncing the movement as a filthy Capitalist Imperialist Pig plot.
Red China, which had been squabbling with Russia for some time
about a matter of method, screamed for immediate war. Russia exposed
this as patent stupidity, saying that if the Capitalists wanted to die,
warring upon them would only help them. China surreptitiously tried
out the thing as an answer to excess population, and found it good. It
also appealed to the well-known melancholy facet of Russian nature.
Besides, after pondering for several days, the Red Bloc decided it could
not afford to fall behind in anything, so it started its own program,
explaining with much logic how it differed.
An elderly British philosopher endorsed the movement, on the grounds
that a temporary setback in Evolution was preferable to facing up to
anything.
The Free Bloc, the Red Bloc, the Neutral Bloc and such scraps as had
been too obtuse to find themselves a Bloc were drawn into the
whirlpool in an amazingly short time, if in a variety of ways. In less
than two years the world was rid of most of what had been bedeviling
it.
Oddly enough, the country where the movement began was the last to
succumb completely. Or perhaps it is not so odd. Coffin-maker to the
world, the American casket industry had by now almost completely
automated box-making and gravedigging, with some interesting
assembly lines and packaging arrangements; there still remained the

jobs of management and distribution. The President of General
Mortuary, an ebullient fellow affectionately called Sarcophagus Sam,
put it well. "As long as I have a single prospective customer, and a
single Stockholder," he said, mangling a stogie and beetling his brows
at the one reporter who'd showed up for the press conference, "I'll try to
put him in a coffin so I can pay him a dividend."
* * * * *
Finally, though, a man who thought he must be the last living human,
wandered contentedly about the city of Denver looking for the coffin he
liked best. He settled at last upon a rich mahogany number with
platinum trimmings, an Automatic Self-Adjusting Cadaver-contour
Innerspring Wearever-Plastic-Covered Mattress with a built in bar. He
climbed in, drew himself a generous slug of fine Scotch, giggled as the
mattress prodded him exploringly, closed his eyes and sighed in solid
comfort. Soft music played as the lid closed itself.
From a building nearby a turkey-buzzard swooped down, cawing in
raucous anger because it had let its attention wander for a moment. It
was too late. It clawed screaming at the solid cover, hissed in
frustration and finally gave up. It flapped into the air again, still
grumbling. It was tired of living on dead small rodents and coyotes. It
thought it would take a swing over to Los Angeles, where the pickings
were pretty good.
As it moved westward over parched hills, it espied two black dots a few
miles to its left. It circled over for a closer look, then grunted and went
on its way. It had seen them before.