It Probably Wouldn't Be a Good Idea to Give Me a Job in Social Engineering

I passed by a cemetary the other day, well I say "by" I mean through.  I have a second job delivering past their use by date body parts to this guy who claims he's a doctor although I suspect he's just doing a modern art installation.  What struck me about the cemetary was how crowded it was.  It was a positive forest of crosses, memorials and headstones, some of which were pretty difficult to shift.  I couldn't help thinking that if all those people were alive today they'd be pretty annoyed at the overcrowding and that's even taking into account the fact that most of them have lost quite a bit of weight in the time they've been there.

In fact the more I think about it the more I suspect we could market death as a weight loss technique.  Can't shake those last few kilos?  A couple of weeks dead and they will literally fall off.  Warning side effects can include lassitude, paralysis, brain death and of course actual death.  Pretty soon Hollywood stars would be lining up for this latest get thin quick method and in a lot of cases it won't affect their acting ability much either.  Then of course it will be all over the gossip magazines and current affairs programs.  There will be interviews with exponents of the diet although, of course, those interviews will be conducted by seance.  Pretty soon everybody who despairs of looking good in their formal dress (I looked dreadful in mine) or their wedding photos will be lining up for a terminal solution to their weight loss problems.

Naturally the wholesale embrace of the Angel Diet (catchy name, no?) would cause a number of serious social problems.  Perhaps the most important of these is "what the hell are we going to do with all these corpses".  My "doctor" client can't take them all.  You think the cemetaries are crowded now?  Its going to be standing room only there in the future, in a manner of speaking of course.  On the plus side social barriers will, perforce, be lowered.  In the future people are going to have to get used to being buried next to people they wouldn't be seen dead with.  Cemetaries are going to be some of the most expensive real estate on the planet.  Which teaches us an important lesson; there's always money in property.  Although the value of actual houses is going to plummet as there are fewer and fewer people left to rent or buy them.

Soon the city will be one sprawling necropolis (I love that word, I'd use it even if I didn't know what it meant) speckled with the occasional house inhabited by some of the few living most of whom will have jobs in the funeral business.  On this day we will all have achieved one of mankinds dearest and longest held dreams; quiet neighbours.