by TheMadDreamer

Created on: May 19, 2008

I mainly think about my body after death as still being alive, I don't know if this is because I'm a bit strange or because I don't think death is necessarily an ending. And so, I think about what I would want to happen to my body as though I were still a fully functioning human being. So this is why:

I want to be cremated, because frankly the concept of being trapped in a little wooden box is just far too scary and far too depressing. At least if they cremate they will be certain I'm dead and won't run the risk of burying me alive. There's only a few times in history that being buried alive has had a happy ending for the victim. One, being Beatrix in 'Kill Bill'. The second, being Buffy in 'Buffy, The Vampire Slayer'. But I will never possess either of their capacities for inhuman strength, so I don't hold out much hope for myself if I'm put into that little wooden box in some sort of comatose state.

Secondly, cemeteries are incredibly depressing for people. They say that ghosts don't hang around in cemeteries. But if they do I imagine them to be terrible depressing and slightly annoying people, without the creativity to go and haunt someone, or at least see some of the world. I imagine they would have, in their lives, been the kind of people who stayed in all the time purely because they were too annoying to ask out. Maybe they even killed themselves because of the depression, that would be even more depressing. Plus, if they're ghosts and hence in purgatory, I would imagine them to be problematic anyway. If they're still hanging around on earth they evidently messed up somewhere along the way and would probably complain a lot. But then again if I was with them surely I should be tarred with the same brush. Also, cemeteries are incredibly depressing for the living. All those dead bodies under the ground? It's incredibly disconcerting. Would you want your relatives to think about you decaying under the ground? No way. Plus, I don't think I want somewhere for my family to come and cry over. If there's no proper place to come to maybe they'll move on more easily. I don't want any of this 'body lying in state' nonsense either. If my family never have to see my dead body they will still think of me as being alive somewhere. That's a nicer way to leave it.

Being cremated also has the major highlight that your remains can end up anywhere. You can have them thrown into the wind, the ocean, off the top of a mountain. Personally, I liked to be sprinkled somewhere with a good view of a city. Maybe looking down over Los Angeles. I've always loved being around large groups of people, but being left alone enough so that I can enjoy the atmosphere. I think I would like looking down over Los Angeles. I haven't actually been yet. Which is an even better reason to have my ashes sprinkled there. Why not? I wouldn't want to shuffle off this mortal coil regretting that I'd never seen the place.

Also, when I die I think I would like everyone to have a big party. Preferably on top of that hill in Los Angeles. I don't want them to have any kind of formal thing after I've died, just burn me and go and have that party on top of that hill. At the end of the day, if you're buried you spend eternity rotting in a hole in a field of rotting bodies. If you're cremated, you're as free as the wind.

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