THE ORDER FOR
Burial of the Dead
¶ The Chosen One, meeting the Body, and going before it into the Local Parish House, shall say one or more of the following sentences, as seems appropriate.
What’s the use of never having any fun to speak of if we’re all just going to die of some disgusting disease? Bubonites 5.6
Whenever Richard Cory went to town, something, something, something, and went home and put a bullet in his head. Psomethings 50.1-5
A Moor by the name of Othello was brave but not a smart fellow: He fell for a ruse, thought his wife gone loose, then choked her to death with a bellow. Pnotes 10.1-5
Some of the doubters will point out that if there’s a God of any kind, he has a lot to answer for, such as war, and children who die of plague and cancer and polio and scarlet fever and diphtheria and encephalitis and appendicitis and tuberculosis and piginosis and so forth and so on. Jeffrey 16.1-4
And so the old fool was sent to Happy Acres to plumb the depths of his senility, and true to the Word of Harry, he talked and talked and talked, until the day the orderly gave him too many sedatives by accident, which was communicated to Harry by phone, causing him to exclaim, Truly my prayers for peace on earth have been answered at last, and I am now well content. Rationalizations 1.6-10
I heard a fly buzz when I died, or something that sounded like that, anyway. Psomethings 60.1-2
C’est la vie. Psayings 5Q.14
¶ After they are come into the Local Parish House, shall be said one or more of the following Selections, taken from the Books of Pnowledge.
Inanitas inanitatis. Pspeciastes 1
Inanity of inanities, said the Seer, inanity of inanities; * all is inanity.
What profit comes from the labors of men, * however long they toil in the noonday sun?
New generations come, and old generations go; * yet all men have their own appointment in Samarra.
All of them will have a long day’s journey into night, * from the age of innocence to the end of the affair.
The beautiful and damned will ride together, on a streetcar named desire, to the lighthouse on the beach, * where all the vile bodies are waiting for Godot.
And from here there will be no exit; no second coming will arrest the course of the clockwork orange, * which rises from under the volcano, and arcs like gravity’s own rainbow toward death in the afternoon.
Sneakus ad funeralem. Psong 56
Iwent to the funeral of my friend today, O Money: * I was obliged to sneak in wearing a disguise, like some mortal enemy of the family.
I peered into the coffin, and truly he was dead as a doornail; * his face was like wax, and he was smiling like an idiot.
What is there to smile at in death? * Surely, death means that it is all over, and all the Money in the world can do you no good.
Truly, a man is completely out of it when he no longer needs Money, * and his loving relatives do not even put any coins in his pocket.
I thought I would weep when I beheld his dead face; * but I did not, for it came to me that he should be weeping for me instead.
Yes, truly it is so: he is history; * and I am still today’s headline, a pawn and a fool for the wicked ambitions of others.
And so I find that I cannot mourn him; * instead, I mourn for myself, while I can, because now that he is gone, there will be no one to mourn me but me.
Nada noster. Psomething 76
Our nada, who art in nada, * something be thy nada,
Thy nada something, * Thy something nada,
Something nada, * nada something nada.
Amen.
¶ Then shall follow the Lesson, taken out of the Forty-Fourth Chapter of the Good Word according to Ult. Willie.
By and by, Harry went to a great ugly place called Indiana, where multitudes of children were crying out against the genocide being committed by the Americans, and he showed up near to a dead sea called Erie, and beheld a giant clamor as children mocked the soldiers who had come to oppress them for their ideals. Even as he watched, the soldiers grew weary with the taunts of the children, and fired rifles at them, killing several on the spot. Thereupon there was a great weeping and wailing, as the children who had not been shot beat their breasts, saying, “How can this be, that we are hunted down like animals, and tormented, and treated with such great shabbiness, and excrement like that?” Among these were several who recognized Harry, having heard of him and his Angels, from their friends on the coast, and they approached him respectfully, saying, “Master, truly we have been told great things about your wisdom and your power. But if you know so much, then tell us how we might restore our friends who have been murdered, and how we might gain vengeance against the evil ones who have done this terrible thing.” While the children spoke to him, waving their arms about with great energy and violence, Harry listened attentively, and when they had done, and stood staring at him expectantly, he replied to them in a calm voice, with his arms folded, saying, “Forget about these things; they do not matter, because they are already in the past, and nothing will bring these dead children back to life, for truly their hearts have stopped beating, and they are history.”
¶ Or this.
Mallites 18.1-11
Of course, there’s always the chance that you won’t like Paradise, and will develop an interest in suicide instead. This is okay too, because you should be the way you are, and if you don’t have the stomach for Paradise, go ahead and check out. It’s not as if anything is actually depending on your participation, and you can be pretty sure there won’t be any God waiting for you on the other side, with a scowl on his face. In fact, you can be pretty sure there really isn’t any “other side,” which means that if you decide to check out, you’ll have forever and always to not think about anything at all, with absolutely no distractions.
¶ Here may be sung a Hymn or Anthem; and at the discretion of the Chosen One, the Creed, the Harriers’ Brayer, the Brayer which follows, and such other fitting brayers as are elsewhere provided in this Book, ending with the Blissing; the Chosen One, before the Brayers, first pronouncing,
The Harrier Spirit be with you.
Answer. You too, I guess.
Insofar as the dead are history, O Harry, and cannot be brought back to life, we know that it is your Way to forget the dead, unless they can be used to point the finger of blame at others. And so we take this opportunity to affirm that it is ourselves we should be concerned with at this time, and how best we may use your Trinity, and your gift of Consolation, to get by from day to day. For we are Harriers, O Chief, and Harriers we shall remain, no matter what, because anything at all is better than thinking about anything at all, as you have taught us, in your own words, O First Born After the Bomb, First Babe of the Boom, O Great Grantor of Consolation. So there.
¶ Then the Chosen One shall turn toward the Body and say,
Duly Deceased, you are on your own now, a chemical residue interred in a box, and we have done the best we can in getting everybody here today, and that is as much as you should expect from us. In addition, we would also like to take this moment to apologize, as sincerely as Harriers can, for all those things which we may do in your name to point the finger of blame at others who are hindering the fulfillment of our desires. From time to time, we may even seek to blame you for those things which you did when you were alive, but since you are now dead, why should you care? Even so, we mumble this small apology as our final tribute to whatever it was that made you such a great and special human being to all of the Harriers who have come here to start forgetting you on this day. So there.
AT THE GRAVE
¶ Then the Chosen One shall turn toward the Body and say,
Man, that is born of woman, has only a short time to live, and is full of misery. He comes up, and is cut down, like some weed that grows through a crack in the highway; in between, he runs away from shadows, and never gets a second chance.
In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we ask for relief, but you, O Harry, who offers the only Consolation in this vale of tears?
Yes, O Chief of all Boomers, O Chief most high and mighty, O Harry Our Friend, we could not bear to go on without you.
You know the secrets of our hearts; do not cease pretending to hear our brayers, but continue to kid us along, and whatever else you do, never take away from us the perfect balm of your Consolation.
¶ Then, while the earth is being cast upon the Body by the Parish Beacons, the Chosen One shall say,
We now commit this Body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain knowledge that natural processes shall consume the corruptible bodies of those who are no longer breathing. And truly nothing more need be said about their future career.
¶ Then shall be said the Harriers’ Brayer.
Our friend, who art in Rio, Harry is your name. Your time has come. Your way is fun, up north, as it is in Rio. We live for today and are rarely blamed. We forget our trespasses, as we forget those we have trespassed against. We yield to temptation, but are not evil. So there.
¶ Then shall be said the Final Blissing.
The Bliss of Harry, which slayeth all understanding, empty your hearts and minds of the knowledge and fear of death, and of the Big Joke of which death is the hackneyed punch line; May the Power of Harry’s Mighty Trinity, Desire, Certainty, and Blame, be with you, and remain your shield against thinking about this or anything else, for as long as you last. So there.
✦ · · ✦ · · ✦
Chapter 1 / 1