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Back from the Dead, Still Behind the Deadlines

Feature

Ask any citizen of Valorn where to find a mortician and you will receive the same helpful answer: a shrug, followed by a hungry look.

It was not always so. There was a golden age of the trade, back when the cannons would, from time to time, scatter Valornians generously across the countryside. An arm in the barley. A hat in the duck pond, with its owner's head still in it. Here was honest, steady work for the woman with a bucket, a strong stomach and a firm grasp of jigsaws. But the cannons have gone quiet, and with them the dependable supply of clients. One may call it progress. The trade calls it a recession.

Alas, the bad news has only just begun. The market, already stripped to the bone, was then cannibalized by the Life Monuments, which now stand in the squares offering the bereaved a tasteful, permanent and mercifully self-service alternative. No casket, no vigil, no sad little man with a clipboard and a sympathetic face. Just a monument, which asks no questions and never once suggests the premium oak.

And then, as is the way of this land, the cannibals arrived to take the little that was left. In fairness, they are the only party in Valorn who have never complained about the quality of the remains. It is hard to compete with a competitor who consumes the evidence.

When asked for comment, the last practising mortician of the realm declined to give her name, her address or, notably, her lunch order.

Valorn's dead, once so well attended, may now be said to be thoroughly self-served.

~ Cerberus

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