I can soft touch death on a Tuesday and not shudder. I can get real close.

Digging gravel graves had been an inconvenience for man, ever since man first knew he went back to the earth. Until the Earth said no more. No more dust.

The Earth’s crust had become infested. A blanket of secreting sebaceous glands. With all manner of excess pushed through its porous layers. Countless histories forced their voices through its armour. Garbage upon garbage. Coffins of flesh and bone woke before their time, trying to reclaim life.

And so came the command for change. No matter its purposeful prehistoric application, ‘form follows function’ was destined to change the way we buried our dead.

Gone are the boxes of maple and oak. The caskets of polished silver and woven straw sink no more.

Tuesdays I de-liquify the dead. Of course I don’t make them solid. I drain them. Then I de-mass.

Creating a mass deficit is simple with the Cubicon-K2. It’s not a messy process at all. I’m experienced now and can reduce a full-sized individual to 27 cubic millimetres in the space of an old Earth hour.

The compact dust has been a god-send on planet Lack-121. Unlike planet Lustre, rocks and regoliths house its core and ice glazes its most northern tip. But its surface has a phospholipid catlick deficiency; a weakened membrane. The dust cubes will serve to render its perimeter breaches. ‘The scattering’ takes place every Tuesday at the turning of our second sun.

This is where their gratitude lays.

I stack the cubes in piles of 10 and sign them off for processing.

My work doesn’t go unblessed. I serve the 10. The 10 chosen to repopulate. The 10 chosen to rejuvenate a lost hope.

Planet preparation is at the forefront of my hope.

Generous are the 10, that I am able to self-serve and create my own cube when the time comes. When death knocks, I shall proudly answer knowing I have fulfilled my duty to their cause.