Final letters should be brief, unapologetic and neither sad nor glad. If you happen to have been a politically important personage in life ‘No comment’ is proper. Most other sentiments sound forced when they are your very last utterances. But especially sidestep the one.
‘It was a good life while it lasted.’
That really is a remark of the bootless and unhorsed. Any one speaking straight from the bowels knows that life is mostly a pain in the arse. Therefore confine yourself to notes concerning various domestic matters, especially those regarding household pets who may have been your only living solace.
‘Please leave milk for Esme the cat and feed Putsie my piranha.’
Political gestures, sentiments and shouts of ‘Up the Republic’ and ‘Long live liberty’ and other remarks are strictly déclassé unless you are aboard a liner travelling and jumping tourist class. Obscene gestures are also out of place except in the case of the boys at the office. To make them really smitten with your demise, an impassioned shout accompanied by a shaking of the fist is in order.
‘You really dirty lousy bunch of rotten guys.’
However, one last warning concerning parting conversations. While on deck leaning expectantly over the rails, some previous pomposity may approach attempting to challenge you by first pretending to ask for a light.
‘I say there old man, got a light.’
‘Sorry left my solid platinum lighter in my suite.’
‘Sir are you merely being painfully pretentious or have you left your vulgar valuables behind because you are jumping.’
‘I beg your brazen pardon.’
‘Look here old man, I saw you standing well back as if to vault the rails just as I came out on deck from the first class smoking room.’
‘I was merely exercising my thighs and calves having missed my afternoon game of quoits.’
‘Sir, upon my monocle I regard that as monstrous twaddle, rot, bosh and figs.’
‘How dare you accuse me of arrant poppycock.’
‘Of course sir, I dare. Just as I dare notice your one red and one green sock. Witnessing such sartorial black tie blasphemy in first class is heinous, sir.’
‘Those hues happen to be, if you don’t mind, my racing colours, you ruddy commoner you.’
‘Ha ha. If you think sir, by that remark that I would mistake you for a member of the titled classes you have another transatlantic trip coming.’
‘I am a prince.’
‘I venture to suggest that that is more bull, pish, tush and mummery, sir, and I would request you take your royal nonsense and person to another shipping line. Because if you think that for one muffin you are going to deliberately delay this vessel for two hours in a rescue attempt of your plebeian remains you have another jump coming.’
This is extremely irritating behaviour especially at a time during which you are tasting the last of this life. This chap has quite obviously let his monocled pomposity go to his head where clearly he intends it should set his course in history. Short of calling for ping pong paddles at dawn, a light peppering of your chamois gloves about your chap’s jowls should suffice a challenge to a duel. Naturally you don’t want to delay your higher graduation by getting hurt. Plus it’s always difficult to jump as a cripple.
But if this son of a bitch persists in unpleasant testiness, take him by his satin lapels or cummerbund and tug trip and twist him over the rails with you. He’ll yell bloody murder and you may have to sock him unconscious but at least you won’t have to book another ocean passage. However it does mean a gross lack of privacy down in the waves. Especially with an opinionated prig who is likely to die like a commoner instead of a prince.
Execution
Relax and wait. Most things will be taken care of for you. And generally there will be accorded some measure of courtesy regarding your last wishes. The major part of your time will be spent praying or playing games and cards with your keepers. During this period it is extremely bad form to be caught cheating, since your opponents will, if they can, be trying to keep you happy and winning if possible.
Usually you will be fatally outnumbered and with no chance of escape you may as well comport yourself with quietude and dignity. Of course, some do attempt to present a cavalier touch with a phony feeble outburst of bombast.
‘I say there, you chaps, can’t we get this damn thing over with, I haven’t all day.’
But wailing cowardice, grovelling and begging does stir up horror in your onlookers and makes your death not a nice thing to witness, albeit folk shouldn’t be there trying to enjoy it anyway. However it is simply not done to have people have to drag, carry and tug you along to your place of dispatch.
Don’t try to get friendly with your executioners or strike up poses of bonhommie. The proper posture is to be possessed of a small measure of unblinking arrogance with shoulders held well back, chin up and the arms firmly placed unflappingly at the sides. Above all never succumb to the hangdog look and allow the hands to come up in front of your person and there be wrung till the knuckles glow with whiteness. It will make everybody around you painfully ill at ease.
In cases where your keepers have wrapped your wrists in thongs behind your back, request if this restraining device can be omitted. However, in countries where they jump on you without warning while you are asleep and tie you up, you are certain to struggle at first till you wake sufficiently to find it is only the guys who have come to execute you. Ask calmly to be unhanded and walk purposefully forward but avoid being overtly military about it. A loose leg movement from the hips, as a manner of motion, is suggested.
While making your way to your place of execution do be on the look out for folk who may be visibly shaken by the spectacle. Only a passing smile or nod from you can convey poignant reassurance. Watching another being dispatched is for some people the supreme entertainment and for your own peace of mind it may be as well to avoid their sickly thrill expectant smiles. If you are of a hypochondriacal tendency it is quite a relief not to have to worry about ailing anymore, as impending execution really knocks hell out of your daily complaints like no other remedy can and it may result in your reaching the best physical condition of a lifetime.
If you are being shot before a firing squad unless the bastards have already gagged you, clenching the teeth is a sufficient way of restraining yourself from shouting out ‘Don’t shoot.’ Tightly tensing the anus will preserve your composure immediately before the impact of the bullets. It also helps to stare at one particular gun barrel and earnestly imagine it to be the unloaded one. But do request to be blindfolded if the guns pointing at you really make you hysterical.
Special fears and anxieties are to be met with in being beheaded. Straight off dismiss from your mind the thought of your head lolling off, blood pulsing in fountains out of your neck and the rest of your body minus the nob that people recognised you by in life, gesticulating around the place. It is quite usual even for the well bred for the mouth of your severed head to emit outrageously obscene words. And it is only fair you should not be held accountable for these. However, in the case of words said, which are of major profundity, be assured that they can be properly attributed to you and protected by international copyright.
At the Funeral
Unless it is your own in which case you already will be there it is extremely remiss not to attend where you might reasonably be expected as a mourner. Keep your graveside gestures and emotions down to a minimum, especially those political. And in the case of a celebrity interment do not push and shove to get up near the coffin. Far better for the newsreel to catch you in your lachrymals at the back than in blatant publicity seeking at the front. Most sensitive people know the real tears of death and they don’t go down the cheeks.
Some moisture welling in the eye which at intervals slowly proceeds down the face is the proper expression of grief befitting a gentleman. A black silk hanky should be used to wipe away any large globule of moisture collecting on the end of the nose or chin.
Stand with your hands folded together just above your privates. If some lady backs up on you in this position with her posterior level with your fingers and dares round upon you with.
‘Keep your hands to yourself.’
Be mindful that a funeral is in progress and murmur flatteringly.
‘Madam it is with regret that I shall.’
It is quite an abominable graveside antic to pretend to want to jump in as the coffin is being lowered. If you tripped with some of the cheaper materials they are using these days, your feet could go right through the lid and your possibly muddy shoes land with the most grossly embarrassing results on the corpse. Usually this is a blatant demonstration by someone who, while the departed was living, gave him a hard time and needs now to garishly exaggerate her distress. Spear shaped high heels are particularly distressing when plunged piercingly into the deceased. If you are standing next to or preferably behind such person and want to properly take the wind out of her bereavement sails billowing all over the cemetery, a gentle shove in the small of the back propelling her towards the hole does wonders. But be prepared to find yourself in an altercation. The lady who backed on to you will certainly take this new jolt as an attempted goose. Which when the mourners are armed could produce a lot of recent funerals. Of course if you are light fingered enough this lady might turn and smile. This is the kind of contradictory behaviour you can expect from the more ill bred of your bereaved who will also later in the obsequies invariably besot themselves with drink and food.
Leave your garish clothes at home. There is nothing more annoying at a funeral than unseemly colours or Bermuda shorts. On the other hand attirement in an all black riding outfit while carrying by hand the deceased’s most favourite wild flower is quite in order when attending the laying to rest of a member of the hunt whose horse may have rolled upon him with fatal consequences at some difficult jump. A couple of thwacks of your riding crop against the side of your boot is the proper gesture just as the coffin is interred, along with a low murmur of ‘Tally ho’ to which other members of the hunt will respond with ‘Here here.’ The final musical note will be the horn sounded by the master of fox hounds. These latter dogs will usually be collected together by the whipper in at a suitable distance from the graveside and will bay and howl together as the coffin is lowered. This is of course a singularly romantic occasion and there is no more acceptable method of killing yourself than busting your head, back or arse in a cross country chase on horseback. A groom leading the mount of the deceased to the graveside to paw turf in upon the coffin is another highly appreciated gesture.
At the crematorium there are many troublesome points to watch. Under no circumstances investigate or push buttons or tug on switches especially those under the catafalque where the remains of the deceased are resting. Dire embarrassment has often ensued when some inquisitive person trying to find out how things work has pushed a button and the deceased departs moving away on the conveyor towards the flames right in the middle of the funeral oration. And when some of the more athletic people present make a rush to stop the coffin, this has resulted in a melee the like of which, with the deliberately flimsy construction of the casket, can get awfully ghastly and unsatisfactory indeed. With a lot of other dead awaiting their turn to be burned, a mishap ahead of you of this kind can cause panic.
Even worse however is when premature conveyance of the corpse to its conflagration happens before any of the other mourners arrive and you stand there sheepishly having pressed the button, making helpless expressions with a rhythmic rising of the shoulders and outwardly offered upturned empty hands.
‘Holy gee I’m really sorry folks.’
And if you have been impossibly stupid enough to have toppled the coffin off the conveyor on to the floor in an effort to retrieve it and now stand there where the damn fragile thing is busted right open and due to the fact of the deceased’s imminent combustion he is attired in something not quite cricket or fully covering or flattering, in such cases instantly assume a precise military air. The tone of your voice should be that used for an emergency. Keep everyone at a distance, especially those tiresome busybodies and aunt sallys who encroach attempting to refold the corpse’s arms back in the box with the rigor mortised limbs waggingly giving them well deserved bumps in the face.
In your expressions of sympathy to the other bereaved, a gentle tap of a hand, or pat on the shoulder is proper. In the case of a male mourner who by his rich mate’s death has inherited her massive wealth one meaningful back slap may be given. However, it is simply never done to use reassuring body contact as an excuse for nudging a comely widow under the tit or gently cupping a cheek of her behind. Sexual arousal is a well known phenomenon that takes place at funerals. And if a female fellow mourner sticks her tongue down your throat in a french kiss, don’t fight it, go with it, but this is not the place to overly prolong the event and stand there feverishly engripped by the graveside with the two of you grossly tampering with each other’s intimate parts. That simply is not on.
People do strange things when beset by grief and their friends should steer them clear of publicly indelicate behaviour. Elegance and the proper rig out is de rigueur. Nudity, even when partial gives a particularly distressing slant to any funeral proceeding unless all present are members of a sun worshippers’ group. In such case black umbrellas should be held open against the sky as a gesture to the corpse. Should a fellow balloonist be the deceased it is quite in order to have your tie embroidered in blue with an ascending balloon and gondola with the legend ‘Bon voyage’ underneath. If it’s at all possible, unless the deceased was the operator of a strip mining excavator, some sample illustration of the departed’s occupation while alive is in keeping.
Of the haughtiest particularity, however, is burial at sea. This should be conducted by life long nautical professionals. The coffin should be properly caulked and encased in a heavy lead container. For seemliness’ sake those who are sea sick should keep to the other side of the vessel when the remains are being slipped into the waves. The scattering of ashes at sea is appropriate only for the remains of the bootless and unhorsed.
Cannibalism
This of course is, in its way, a kind of funeral and appropriate formalities are well to be observed. Aside from reincarnationists who eat each other for this purpose and whose motives must be classed as religious, there exists the everyday matter that must be reckoned with when taking one’s seat on an aircraft. Flying over remote uninhabited areas such as some polar region, one must unfortunately recognise the possibility that one can plummet out of the sky and that until you are discovered on some blizzard swept mountain top and rescued there might not be much around to eat.
The regrettable possibility therefore must be considered of ingesting one of your fellow passengers. This you may really find foul making to contemplate especially with the type that might be sitting next to you these days on group charter flights. But here is a rare opportunity to find qualities objectionable in the living quite beneficial in the dead.
However, certain proprieties must be observed. And particularly when some perfectly beautiful creature sits next to you on the aircraft who makes your mouth water to eat. Under no circumstances is it permissible to allow any expression of this appetite upon your face. It is bound to be the most sickly visage imaginable. You may freely, however, contemplate her delightfully eating you. This can indeed quite unaccountably be exciting to a degree perceptible in your smile. Which might easily result in this dazzling babe socking your jaw loose and leaving you with an even more unfortunate leer.
When the plane crash lands in the snow and you have run out of the usually accepted conversational topics, it is objectionable and in extremely poor taste to try to touch upon matters relating to bloodsucking, fiends or group depravity. Different rules ensue, alas, as soon as the stage is reached where if you are not to starve to death you must discuss the eating of fellow passengers including your winsome travelling partner. This is a moment for the supr
eme nobility of words. And those of the dead and dying who are being dismembered to become part of the larder still should be referred to as persons and never as this bit of liver, tit or testicle.
Because of her elegant leanness and lack of cushioning in the impact, your seat mate may have been killed instantly. As a gentleman some effort should be made to restrain the eagerness of the others, appetized to a frenzy by the lissome sight of her, to eat her raw. Cooking is less blatant than gulping her fresh so to speak. Be mindful not to exhibit any relish, while ingesting the gorgeous body, hungry as you may be, and never smack or lick your lips over her dainty viands. The swallowing of her remains down your throat is a moment of profound sorrow and mourning, being that of her final obsequies. Of course, fair is fair, and some allowance can be made for the normal healthy enjoyment of a bite to eat.
Gusto is bound to be less restrained when a couple of the other cannibals are chewing some boorish passenger whom they may have disliked on sight. Needless to say one must be aware of incarnating a devoured passenger’s obnoxiousness in oneself requiring exorcism upon one’s returning to civilian life again. In the matter of racial and colour repugnancies and prejudices, these should never become criteria when asking for another helping. However having a genuine gustatory preference it should be couched in requesting white, yellow or dark meat and never for a bit of Pole, Chink or Nigger.
Unless there is nothing else left, it is on the whole seemly that you do not eat the intimate parts of the opposite sex. In particular the excitingly flavourful portions of the attractive passenger who sat next to you. Even though you may feel absolutely convinced that you alone can treat such delicacies with all the sacred dignity that the masticating of these may require. The more swinish however may fight bitterly over these morsels of the anatomy and in such cases do not hesitate to make it loudly known that this is exactly what one might expect from the bootless and unhorsed.