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 +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | | | | This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction, | | December 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any | | evidence that the U. S. Copyright on this publication | | was renewed. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+

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AND ALL THE EARTH A GRAVE

BY C. C. MacAPP

ILLUSTRATED BY GAUGHAN

 There's nothing wrong with dying--it just hasn't ever had the proper sales pitch!

It all began when the new bookkeeping machine of a large Midwesterncoffin manufacturer slipped a cog, or blew a transistor, or something. It was fantastic that the error--one of two decimal places--shouldenjoy a straight run of okays, human and mechanical, clear down theline; but when the figures clacked out at the last clacking-outstation, there it was. The figures were now sacred; immutable; and itis doubtful whether the President of the concern or the Chairman ofthe Board would have dared question them--even if either of those twogentlemen had been in town. 

As for the Advertising Manager, the last thing he wanted to do wasquestion them. He carried them (they were the budget for the comingfiscal year) into his office, staggering a little on the way, anddropped dazedly into his chair. They showed the budget for his owndepartment as exactly one hundred times what he'd been expecting. Thatis to say, fifty times what he'd put in for. 

When the initial shock began to wear off, his face assumed anexpression of intense thought. In about five minutes he leaped fromhis chair, dashed out of the office with a shouted syllable or two forhis secretary, and got his car out of the parking lot. At home, hetossed clothes into a travelling bag and barged toward the door, giving his wife a quick kiss and an equally quick explanation. Hedidn't bother to call the airport. He meant to be on the next planeeast, and no nonsense about it. .. . 

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With one thing and another, the economy hadn't been exactly inoverdrive that year, and predictions for the Christmas season weregloomy. Early retail figures bore them out. Gift buying dribbledalong feebly until Thanksgiving, despite brave speeches by theAdministration. The holiday passed more in self-pity than inthankfulness among owners of gift-oriented businesses. 

Then, on Friday following Thanksgiving, the coffin ads struck. 

Struck may be too mild a word. People on the streets sawfeverishly-working crews (at holiday rates!) slapping up posters onbillboards. The first poster was a dilly. A toothy and toothsome youngwoman leaned over a coffin she'd been unwrapping. She smiled as ifshe'd just received overtures of matrimony from an eighty-year-oldbillionaire. There was a Christmas tree in the background, and thecoffin was appropriately wrapped. So was she. She looked as if she hadjust gotten out of bed, or were ready to get into it. For amorousyoung men, and some not so young, the message was plain. The motto, "_The Gift That Will Last More Than a Lifetime_", seemed hardly to thepoint. 

Those at home were assailed on TV with a variety of bright and cleverskits of the same import. Some of them hinted that, if the younglady's gratitude were really precipitous, and the bedroom too faraway, the coffin might be comfy. 

Of course the more settled elements of the population were notneglected. For the older married man, there was a blow directlybetween the eyes: "_Do You Want Your Widow to Be Half-Safe?_" And, forthe spinster without immediate hopes, "_I Dreamt I Was Caught DeadWithout My Virginform Casket!_"

Newspapers, magazines and every other medium added to the assault, never letting it cool. It was the most horrendous campaign, for sheerconcentration, that had ever battered at the public mind. The publicreeled, blinked, shook its head to clear it, gawked, and rushed out tobuy. 

Christmas was not going to be a failure after all. Department storemanagers who had, grudgingly and under strong sales pressure, madespace for a single coffin somewhere at the rear of the store, nowrushed to the telephones like touts with a direct pronouncement from ahorse. Everyone who possibly could got into the act. Grocerysupermarkets put in casket departments. The Association ofPharmaceutical Retailers, who felt they had some claim to priority, tried to get court injunctions to keep caskets out of servicestations, but were unsuccessful because the judges were all out buyingcaskets. Beauty parlors showed real ingenuity in merchandising. Roadsand streets clogged with delivery trucks, rented trailers, andwhatever else could haul a coffin. The Stock Market went completelymad. Strikes were declared and settled within hours. Congress wascalled into session early. The President got authority to rationlumber and other materials suddenly in starvation-short supply. Statelaws were passed against cremation, under heavy lobby pressure. A newracket, called boxjacking, blossomed overnight. 

The Advertising Manager who had put the thing over had been fightingwith all the formidable weapons of his breed to make his plantmanagers build up a stockpile. They had, but it went like a toupee ina 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 ofthe demand could be met. Jet passenger planes were stripped of theirseats, supplied with Yankee gold, and sent to plunder the world of itscoffins. 

It might be supposed that Christmas goods other than caskets wouldtake a bad dumping. That was not so. Such was the upsurge ofprosperity, and such was the shortage of coffins, that nearlyeverything--with a few exceptions--enjoyed the biggest season onrecord. 

On Christmas Eve the frenzy slumped to a crawl, though on Christmasmorning there were still optimists out prowling the empty stores. Thenation sat down to breathe. Mostly it sat on coffins, because therewasn'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 choosefrom. As for the rest of the world, it had better not die just now orit would be literally a case of dust to dust. 

[Illustration]

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Of course everyone expected a doozy of a slump after Christmas. Butour Advertising Manager, who by now was of course Sales Manager andFirst Vice President also, wasn't settling for any boom-and-bust. He'dbeen a frustrated victim of his choice of industries for so many yearsthat now, with his teeth in something, he was going to give it the oldbite. He gave people a short breathing spell to arrange their coffinpayments and move the presents out of the front rooms. Then, late inJanuary, his new campaign came down like a hundred-megatonner. 

Within a week, everyone saw quite clearly that his Christmas modelswere now obsolete. The coffin became the new status symbol. 

The auto industry was of course demolished. Even people who had enoughmoney to buy a new car weren't going to trade in the old one and letthe new one stand out in the rain. The garages were full of coffins. Petroleum went along with Autos. (Though there were those whowhispered knowingly that the same people merely moved over into thenew 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, therewas variety. Compact models appeared, in which the occupant's feetwere to be doubled up alongside his ears. One manufacturer pushed acircular model, claiming that by all the laws of nature the foetalposition was the only right one. At the other extreme were virtualhouses, ornate and lavishly equipped. Possibly the largest of all wasthe "_Togetherness_" model, triangular, with graduated recesses forFather, Mother, eight children (plus two playmates), and, in the farcorner beyond the baby, the cat. 

The slump was over. Still, economists swore that the new boom couldn'tlast either. They reckoned without the Advertising Manager, whose eyesgleamed brighter all the time. People already had coffins, which theypolished and kept on display, sometimes in the new "Coffin-ports"being added to houses. The Advertising Manager's reasoning was directand to the point. He must get people to use the coffins; and now hehad all the money to work with that he could use. 

The new 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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