And All the Earth a Grave Read online

note was woven in so gradually that it is not easy to put afinger on any one ad and say, "It began here." One of the first wassurely the widely-printed one showing a tattooed, smiling young manwith his chin thrust out manfully, lying in a coffin. He wasrugged-looking and likable (not too rugged for the spindly-limbed toidentify with) and he oozed, even though obviously dead, virility atevery pore. He was probably the finest-looking corpse since Richardthe Lion-Hearted.

  Neither must one overlook the singing commercials. Possibly thecatchiest of these, a really cute little thing, was achieved byjazzing up the Funeral March.

  It started gradually, and it was all so un-violent that few saw it assuicide. Teen-agers began having "Popping-off parties". Some of theirelders protested a little, but adults were taking it up too. Thetired, the unappreciated, the ill and the heavy-laden lay down ingrowing numbers and expired. A black market in poisons operated for alittle while, but soon pinched out. Such was the pressure ofpersuasion that few needed artificial aids. The boxes _were_ verycomfortable. 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--placedtheir boxes on the Grant Avenue in San Francisco. They died withhighly intellectual expressions, and eventually were washed by thegentle rain.

  Of course there were voices shouting calamity. When aren't there? Butin the long run, and not a very long one at that, they availed naught.

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  It isn't hard to imagine the reactions of the rest of the world. Solet 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 amatter of method, screamed for immediate war. Russia exposed this aspatent stupidity, saying that if the Capitalists wanted to die,warring upon them would only help them. China surreptitiously triedout the thing as an answer to excess population, and found it good. Italso appealed to the well-known melancholy facet of Russian nature.Besides, after pondering for several days, the Red Bloc decided itcould not afford to fall behind in anything, so it started its ownprogram, explaining with much logic how it differed.

  An elderly British philosopher endorsed the movement, on the groundsthat a temporary setback in Evolution was preferable to facing up toanything.

  The Free Bloc, the Red Bloc, the Neutral Bloc and such scraps as hadbeen too obtuse to find themselves a Bloc were drawn into thewhirlpool in an amazingly short time, if in a variety of ways. In lessthan two years the world was rid of most of what had been bedevilingit.

  Oddly enough, the country where the movement began was the last tosuccumb completely. Or perhaps it is not so odd. Coffin-maker to theworld, the American casket industry had by now almost completelyautomated box-making and gravedigging, with some interesting assemblylines and packaging arrangements; there still remained the jobs ofmanagement and distribution. The President of General Mortuary, anebullient fellow affectionately called Sarcophagus Sam, put it well."As long as I have a single prospective customer, and a singleStockholder," he said, mangling a stogie and beetling his brows at theone reporter who'd showed up for the press conference, "I'll try toput him in a coffin so I can pay him a dividend."

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  Finally, though, a man who thought he must be the last living human,wandered contentedly about the city of Denver looking for the coffinhe liked best. He settled at last upon a rich mahogany number withplatinum trimmings, an Automatic Self-Adjusting Cadaver-contourInnerspring Wearever-Plastic-Covered Mattress with a built in bar. Heclimbed in, drew himself a generous slug of fine Scotch, giggled asthe mattress prodded him exploringly, closed his eyes and sighed insolid comfort. Soft music played as the lid closed itself.

  From a building nearby a turkey-buzzard swooped down, cawing inraucous anger because it had let its attention wander for a moment. Itwas too late. It clawed screaming at the solid cover, hissed infrustration and finally gave up. It flapped into the air again, stillgrumbling. It was tired of living on dead small rodents and coyotes.It thought it would take a swing over to Los Angeles, where thepickings were pretty good.

  As it moved westward over parched hills, it espied two black dots afew miles to its left. It circled over for a closer look, then gruntedand went on its way. It had seen _them_ before. The old prospector andhis burro had been in the mountains for so long the buzzard hadconcluded they didn't know _how_ to die.

  The prospector, whose name was Adams, trudged behind his burro towardthe buildings that shimmered in the heat, humming to himself now andthen or addressing some remark to the beast. When he reached theoutskirts of Denver he realized something was amiss. He stood andgazed at the quiet scene. Nothing moved except some skinny packratsand a few sparrows foraging for grain among the unburied coffins.

  "Tarnation!" he said to the burro. "Martians?"

  A half-buried piece of newspaper fluttered in the breeze. He walkedforward slowly and picked it up. It told him enough so that heunderstood.

  "They're gone, Evie," he said to the burro, "all gone." He put his armaffectionately around her neck. "I reckon it's up to me and you agin.We got to start all over." He stood back and gazed at her with mildreproach. "I shore hope they don't favor your side of the house somuch this time."--C.C. MacAPP

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  +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | Page 127: "She looked as if had just" replaced with | | "She looked as if she had just" | | Page 131: immedately replaced with immediately | | Page 131: affort replaced with afford | | Page 132: "It flapped into the air begin, still grumbling." | | replaced with "It flapped into the air again, | | still grumbling." | | Page 132: "the pickings yere pretty good." replaced with | | "the pickings were pretty good." | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------+

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