copyright © 2003 by Robert L. Blau

    The funeral parlor was the most prominent building in town.  That's probably why I went there first.
    "Welcome to Snuffem & Stuffem!  I'm Roland Snuffem."
    "And I'm Ronald Stuffem.  How can we help you?"
    I found myself facing two genial round-faced gentlemen of indeterminate features.  I looked from one to the other.  It was impossible to tell the difference.  Then I looked away and couldn't remember what either one looked like.  However, I thought uncharitably of Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
    "I'm new in town," I said, "and I'm looking for a job."
    "Ah, must be your lucky day!  We're ..."
    "Hiring a Digger," they said. "Think you're ..."
    "Up to that?"
    "Sure," I replied. "I can dig ditches.  Would I also, uh, lower the coffins?"
    "Nope," said Snuffem & Stuffem. "Just dig.  We have Planters to do the ..."
    "Insertions.  Ten dollars an hour.  You can start ..."
    "Tomorrow.  We have a backlog."
    "Great," I said. "Suits me.  What are the benefits?"
    Snuffem & Stuffem laughed tinklingly.  "How quaint," they said. "Burl can show you around."

    Burl was a muscular young man of perhaps 30.  He was a likable guy who always looked you straight in the eye.  His uniform suggested chauffeuring.
    "So, you're a driver?" I asked conversationally.
    "No, I'm a Fetcher," he said with a touch of hurt pride. "The Head Fetcher, in fact."
    "I'm sorry," I back-pedaled. "I'm new to this business.  What's a 'Fetcher?'"
    "I fetch the, uh, clients," he said.
    "Ah," I said. "The ones I dig the graves for?"
    "Exactly," he smiled. "It's one of the more interesting and challenging jobs here."
    "I should think so," I mumbled quickly, not anxious to hear the details of picking up and handling dead bodies. "And what do they do over there?"
    "That's Stuffing," said Burl. "Let me introduce you to Belinda.  She can explain it better than I."
    Belinda was working on a "client."  She offered to shake my hand, but I pretended not to see.
    "So you're an embalmer?" I asked.  I didn't think Burl had it quite right.
    "No, a Stuffer," she said. "I used to be an Embalmer, but that's a dead-end technology.  So I retrained and switched."
    "Well, I can see how embalming could be called dead-end," I said cleverly. "You don't mean to say that it's obsolete, do you?"
    "Exactly," said she without so much as a snicker. "As obsolete as digging and planting."
    "You mean burial?" I asked.
    "Correct.  That's all going away.  Oh, are you a Digger?"  Now, she laughed.  "Don't worry.  You have at least a year before you get laid off.  Embalmers, too.  The hang-up is finding an efficient way to recycle all the parts."
    I was starting to feel a bit queasy.  She misinterpreted my expression as interest.
    "Here's the way it works," Belinda continued. "When I get a Dearly Departed, I skin it and stuff the skin with straw.  The stuffed Dearly Departed - I'm just going to call it a 'DD' from now on - is then lovingly displayed for the Grieving Family.  When they've grieved enough and gone home, we simply torch the DD, and we're done.  It's much faster and cleaner than traditional cremation.  Not to mention cheaper.  The only hang-up is how to dispose of all the ... other stuff."
    "I see," I gagged.
    "Oh, but let me show you my latest work."  My change of color apparently did not faze her.  Perhaps it was just what she was used to.  "Here!  What do you think?"
    Whoever it had once been, it now resembled a cross between a Cabbage Patch doll and a bad copy of the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. 
    "That's beautiful," I lied.
    She looked at me with a touch of interest.  "Oh, don't worry!" she said. "You've got months of wonderful experiences to look forward to here."

    As a matter of fact, I did work at Snuffem & Stuffem for several months.  I steered clear of "Stuffing," and everything went fine.  Until the day they brought that guy in.
    I was chatting with Burl about weather and sports when two Fetchers staggered in dragging a struggling, kicking, screaming, very much alive man.  Burl shot immediately into action.  It happened so quickly, I'm not even sure exactly what happened, but this is what I remember.  Burl reached the struggling man in one stride and stuck something in his neck.  I'm not sure where he got the hypodermic.  The man slumped almost immediately.
    "How many times do I have to tell you?" he chided the Fetchers. "You sedate at the pick-up!"
    "But we'd already got there," one of the Fetchers objected, "and we didn't have no needles.  We couldn't just go back tomorrow.  He wouldn't've been there."
    "Ok, ok," said Burl. "Just don't let it happen again." 
    Then he turned back to me.
    "That's what I get for sending two rookies on an assignment," he sighed. "I know better, but we're short-handed at the moment."
    "That man is alive!" I sputtered.
    "Don't worry," he reassured me. "Not for long."
    "But, ... I mean, ..." I was still sputtering. "Do you mean to tell me that you kill people in order to bury them?"
    "Of course not," laughed Burl. "We kill them to make a profit.  We only bury them if there's no better means of disposal."
    "But funeral parlors aren't supposed to make their own corpses!" I protested.
    "Says who?" he returned. "Of course, we take the low-hanging fruit first - the ones who die of natural causes, accidents, and the like - but we've found that those don't nearly provide the profit margins the shareholders expect, so we've had to be proactive.  So we designate a certain percent of the population for processing each month.  It's a competitive business.  You snooze, you lose."
    "Processing?" I gasped. "You can't do this!  It's murder!"
    "Sure we can," said Burl. "It's business."
    "You're making me an accessory!" I protested.
    "That's pretty good," observed Burl. "They usually call employees 'resources' here, but I'll suggest 'accessory' at the next staff meeting."
    "Does it ever occur to you," I asked, "that one of these months, you might be selected for 'processing?'"
    "No, I'm the Head Fetcher," he said.  But there was an almost imperceptible hesitation before his answer.

    I had already decided to leave Snuffem & Stuffem, but I didn't want to stir things up too much before I got my last paycheck.  There was a funeral in progress when I went to pick it up.
    The Dearly Departed looked like a hastily constructed effigy, as, I suppose, he was.  The bereaved widow was screaming at Burl.  Burl kept his eyes uncharacteristically averted.  I couldn't help asking him about the incident.
    "I noticed you couldn't look her in the eye," I said. "Feeling guilty?"
    He met my gaze with his usual serenity.
    "No," he said. "It's just that I know that I have to fetch her tonight."
    I decided not to contest his denial.

    I caught on as a clerk at a drugstore.  Anything, I thought, to get me away from Snuffem & Stuffem.  I was quite content there for the next three or four months.  My boss seemed to like my work, and one day, he called me into his office to offer me a raise.
    "Well, that's good news," I said. "More money is always good."
    "I have even better news," said my boss. "I'm transitioning you to greater responsibility, effective immediately."
    "A promotion," I translated. "What does that involve?"
    "I'm putting you in charge of our biggest account," he said. "The one without which this company couldn't exist."
    "And that is ...?" I prodded.
    "Why, Snuffem & Stuffem, of course!  Congratulations, my boy!"
    "Sn-sn-sn-sn," I faltered, unable to get the full word out. "We don't sell them p-p-p-poison, do we?"
    My boss laughed heartily.  "Of course not!" he bellowed. "We call it 'Afterlife Acceleration Elixir.'"
    "I'm sorry," I said. "I can't work for any company that supports Snuffem & Stuffem."
    "You can't work for any that doesn't in this town," said my boss.
    "We'll see," I said.

    I had never thought that I would be happy to work anywhere where I had to ask, "You want fries with that?"  However, circumstances change.  Passing out burgers and fries was heaven compared to what I had just walked away from.  At first, I didn't even care what was in the new specialty sandwich, the "LP Barbecue."
    But some of the customers asked.  They said it didn't taste like chicken.  I figured beef, but I asked some of my co-workers.  They thought beef, too.  The boss said beef.  I told the customers that.  They said it didn't taste like beef.
    "What does the 'LP' stand for?" I asked my boss.
    "'Long-playing?'" he quipped. "I don't know.  Maybe the 'P' is for 'pork.'"
    Then, just as I was turning back to the burger I was wrapping, he said, "All I know is that we get it from Snuffem & Stuffem."
    That was when the ice started walking down my spine.  "Long Pig," I thought.  At almost the same moment, a long, black limo pulled up to the drive-through window.  Burl was driving.
    "Oh, fancy meeting you here!" he chirped. "I'll just have a burger.  I'm in a hurry.  Oh, did I tell you?  We laid off all the Diggers, Planters, and Embalmers today.  We've gone strictly to Stuffing."
    "So, you must have solved the problem of how to recycle all the ... parts, huh?"
    "Mm-hmm," he mumbled.
    I handed him his burger, and he drove off.  Something was tugging at the back of my mind.  Then it hit me.  He hadn't looked me in the eye once.  I didn't bother going home.  I got in my car and headed straight out of town.

    Ok, I thought, this is good.  Didn't have the guts before, but now I'm going to report these guys to the police.  Soon as I hit the next town.
    And as soon as I did, I searched out the police station.
    "I've come to report a crime," I told the desk sergeant. "Actually, that's not one crime, but many."
    "What kind of crimes?" asked the sergeant, taking out a pad and pencil.
    "Homicide!" I declared. "Multiple homicides!"
    "Oh, my!" said the sergeant. "That is serious.  Homicide is our number 2 priority here.  You'd better tell me what you know."
    "Well, it's this company," I began. "They ... Did you say 'number 2?'  What's number 1?"
    "Oh, that would be tracking down fugitives from Snuffem & Stuffem," said the sergeant. "You'd be surprised how many poor sports there are."
    "I forgot some very important evidence in my car," I lied. "I'll be right back."

    I've been driving for days now, looking for a town without a Snuffem & Stuffem perched atop its most prominent eminence.  So far, I have had no luck.  When did all this happen? I ask myself.  How could we let this happen?