The Rapture of Shallowness

What follows is an interview with the corpse of a man who asked me to build him a metal skeleton. He entered my home one day much to my own surprise, and I found myself tired of his nonsense very quickly, but I thought it important enough to document and prolong the existence of. V refers to me, and C to the corpse.

V: Sir, I must ask, why do you want metal bones?

C: Why would I not want metal bones, ma’am, I see no reason not to have metal bones.

V: Because you’re a corpse, sir, I find it quite absurd you would even tell me you desire to have metal bones at all.

C: Why? Are you prejudiced against the dead? You know there’s simply nothing different between you and I... aside from a few factors.

V: Well, I’d not like to ask about that, moreso, what do you even find appealing about it? What are you supposed to do with metal bones at all?

C: I’d like metal bones because Jeremy, the man with the grave next to mine, well, my neighbor, who asks me daily if I’ve seen his daughter, the nutcase, won’t shut up about how he’s better than me for his having of metal bones, something all the ghouls and wayward spirits giggle about.

V: But what does that matter to you, really? Is it not ok simply to have... priceless bones?

C: Eh... I believe the ethereal and humane finds itself imposed upon some kind of... overemphasis. I think that the strength and spiritual alleviation will be worth it... uhm.

V: So, you care about material, or is it something else? All I’m hearing is a very human desire for material satisfaction and the societal pressures to get it. I thought being dead would separate you from that, you know, because you’re dead, but hey, you do you, I guess.

C: ...

V: Not trying to force you into anything here, but it seems like that to me.

C: You’re right.

And moments later, he left, never to return. Metal bones ring like metronomes, do you really need paper and new parts to make yourself whole?

-

Jeremy arose from his grave for the four hundredth twenty second time.

He looked to his left. His neighbour was not awake yet.

A pity.

Jeremy often looked forward to seeing him (bothering him.)

(Jeremy was a shallow man, and his parents were shallow, too, having accidentally married each other on a drunken, hazy, party-filled night on their community college graduation day.

[His parents were third cousins, and all they cared for were the family jewels. Or: two marriage rings, and three statement necklaces.]

[They, needless to say, did not inherit the jewellery.]

As Jeremy was a shallow man, he included in his ‘in case I die’ instructions [there were twenty copies of the envelope] that, as the mortician(s) prepared him, leave the precious metals of his skeleton alone.

[Jeremy was shallow, so he had not opted to be an organ donor.]

[He had fatty liver disease, anyway.]

[Also, it did end up being three morticians assisting in his preparation.]

[Jeremy was not skinny.]

[It was a side effect of his shallowness; he was excellent at denying personal faults.])

It was those precious metals of his skeleton that Jeremy particularly enjoyed bothering his neighbour about.

His neighbour lacked them, and as Jeremy was shallow, he thought it quite funny that his neighbour thought the metal beneath him.

(Yes, the bones were beneath him, but he was shallow, so he was not smart enough to understand the play-on-words his neighbour had provided.)

Once, his neighbour left. Jeremy did not know where to, other than the fact that he seemed to glance at him enviously, then disappeared.

The envy on his neighbour's face, compared to the envy of other people’s faces, was odd.

Jeremy shrugged and decided to not care.

He was shallow, after all.

The neighbour never seemed to be as bothered after that one day.

It bothered Jeremy, instead, that his neighbour was less shallow than him.

He was shallow, after all.