We both laugh at this statement. A private joke. Her reference comes not because she’ll have killed me. No. And it won’t be because she indulged in some provocative action that assaults conventional mores or sensibilities.

…Well. Ok. I’m lying about that. 

She will have.

Maurey promised to place my dead and naked body in a tree for vultures to eat. So she will be committing an illegal act—unless it becomes permissible to hang a dead body from an elm branch.

The reason for her promise is that all current options for disposal repulse me. They’re unnatural. I ate birds and animals all my life, when I die, let them eat me.  As Hamlet said, “A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.”  As my practical side hates waste and inefficiency, my alternative sounds both sensible and ecologically positive.

Procedures now in vogue interrupt the natural cycle of life from death.

For instance, one grave inefficiency is the practice of using good land for cemeteries. In Ramsey County alone almost 800 acres are given over to necropolises. These parking plots for $4,000 copper-clad cans containing putrefying flesh offer enough land to build eight Como Parks.

Really, though, not all that much putrefying is going on. Americans ingest so many preservatives that corpses exhumed after 20, 30, or more years look good enough to star in moisturizer commercials. With air-tight coffins, sealed vaults, and the body-plasticizing embalming fluids used on the dead currently, it’s not only our flesh that isn’t decaying naturally.  Viral organisms live on—waiting to escape in some Stephen King horror scenario wreaking diseased havoc on a later and unsuspecting world.

So, no, I don’t want my body and bones laying waste to land or future generations.

I also don’t want to be encased in plastic or resin like Wolfman Jack requested for his carcass. He wanted his right arm motorized and his voice to boom out with a cheery, “Hi, I’m WJ. Have a great day!” to all who shook his articulated hand. He died in 1995; no power-driven, taxidermied Wolfman came about. I’m not sure whether state and federal laws or tastefulness intervened.

Now that I’ve mentioned taste, it’s time to talk cryogenics. The concept leaps beyond egomanical. Frozen. To return to what, to whom, for what purpose?  Makes me shudder.

I decline cremation as an option too. The thought of being burnt into a greasy heap of dirty black cinders makes my flesh creep. It certainly takes care of land use problems though. Or could. Many people choose cremation, but growing numbers also choose to have their boxes of cinders buried. In cemeteries.

Incomprehensible.

But burying a cinder box costs less than a funeral.

The fees for a funeral today average around $10,000. Add up the basics: a non-declinable fee for the mortician’s advice and expertise ($1,600). A Cashmere Buff copper casket with Champagne Silk interior ($4,300); a standard cemetery plot ($3,300); embalming, presentation and boxing of the deceased ($460); grave digging ($475) that’s $10,135—without tombstone or flowers.

If my family has to spend that much when I die, I prefer they enjoy a fabulous vacation—in Alaska or Hawaii. Stuff me into an extra-strength hefty bag with some dry ice, toss it into a car or steamer trunk, away they go. After hoisting me into the embrace of a towering pine or palm tree they’d enjoy a relaxing vacation. Let’s put the F-U-N back into “funeral.”

Joy for my loved ones and an organic send-off. Yes, I want that natural option. And if not a tree, maybe the sea. Groceries for the birds or food for the fishes; either could be fine.

The sea seems a particularly sanitary solution. Hordes of humans have drowned in the sea, but have you ever read a pollution report? No. Because the bodies rot away or are consumed. Life from death. The continuation of the natural cycle.

There are other advantages to disposal at sea as well. Such as hiring Hearse Boats and their crews to ferry the dead and their families to a plunge point.  Such a scheme could revive the American economy by offering a whole new line of work for down-sized Caribbean cruise lines and personnel. Think of the possibilities! Get a tan, dance under romantic starry skies, plop granny in the sea. Whole families relishing their time together while saying good-bye. The vast oceans would never fill up, so even a plethora of dead from plagues or major catastrophes could easily be accommodated.

Logistics problems crop up without planning though. What if large numbers of the dead dangled like icicles in the oaks along Summit Avenue? First, it’s ghoulish having bodies hanging from tree limbs by their rigor-mortised elbows—especially if families chose tree-lined boulevards close to home. And second, birds and beasts removing flesh from the dead could be problematic. Vultures, ravens, crows and scavenging beasts scare children walking to school.

Tasteful biers … tree houses for the departed … would need to be devised. Or artfully arranged slabs of rock on which to allow remains to rest—especially for families suffering from vertigo.

And special areas need creation. These places still proffer more efficiency than cemeteries as bodies would be cycled, so to speak, and platforms, so not to impede birds and animals, would necessarily be plain.

Owing to hygienic concerns (such as bird droppings) and safety issues (such as the unfettered roaming about of flesh-rending animals) areas outside city limits need to be preserved for what I come to envision as The Hanging Gardens. Large ones to service entire states, or small branches placed in every county. Think of the revitalization of economically depressed areas, such as the Iron Range, if they became a “destination” spot.

Downwind of population centers, of course. Death does stink.

All the usual accoutrements of tourist travel would be needed. Hotels and restaurants with attendant staff. And services specific to death would swell employment: singers and hoisters, scat-shovelers and gas-mask vendors are only a few of the ongoing jobs I can think of; surely many other support roles will arise.

It’s not like this option is unusual. Tree “burial” has antecedents in other cultures. In Tibet, after lighting a small juniper fire, a tomden, or butcher, placed a body on a rock platform. He sliced it from head to toe exposing the flesh and bones. Then vultures descended and feasted. After the bones were picked clean, the tomden pulverized them and mixed them with the brain and flour. A pastiche for the birds and nothing remaining after dessert but wisps of juniper smoke.

It could take a while for that to catch on.

But customs surrounding death change. In Victorian times mourners draped themselves in black for years. They even cloaked their houses with mourning. Special rings and necklaces with pendants containing hair from the dead encircled fingers and throats.

Custom changed. It can continue to evolve.

Most current customs came about to comfort mourners. But that wasn’t always so.

Mummification, and all funerary rites in ancient Egypt, prepared the dead for afterlife. Today, wakes ease those who remain. Memorials and tombstones offer solace. But consolation can manifest in other ways. For instance, instead of erecting tracts of tombs in boneyards, place a bench, duly inscribed, in a loved one’s honor in a memorial garden (one that we make out of the eight Como Park-sized pieces of land).  If the departed loved roses—plant a bush. The dead then continue to contribute to the community. 

For private communing with the dead, altars in homes may become fashionable. Or tiny tombstones lining the front walk, each with the name of a passed loved one or friend, keep memories fresh.

Besides, what it all comes to when one ends, is memories.  What is a body but the organic repository of personality. The impact of life remains in memories. There is one other option I could take, of course, although it would cheat Maurey of the task that has come to fascinate her. Medical research. I’d consider offering my body to science … but only if they’d promise, after using me, to place my leftover bits and pieces on a bird feeder