"...the sea shall give up her dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in Him shall be changed, and made like unto His glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself."
I used to think that burial at sea was kind of a neat idea. Committing someone to the deep had a certain romantic ring to it that mere interment in the ground did not. It also appealed to a sense of completeness; that in death we would finally return to the proto-womb that had birthed us all. I suppose also that burial at sea lacks the gnawing hint of claustrophobic confinement that dropping into a rectangular hole can evoke.
So some time ago I was sitting in the Admiral's club at Columbus Airport when I made what could best be described as a jarring discovery. It seems that advances in deep-sea exploration have turned up a species of enormous lamprey (huge worm-like monstrosities with circular, teeth-studded maws,) that lurk at the very bottom of the ocean. These Cthuloid spawn-of-nightmares squirm around in the total blackness and eat whatever hits the seabed. Mostly it's things like whale carcasses and other yummy delights, but the author of the article made the happy point that doubtless many a human corpse has made it on to the menu.
Now call me squeamish, but I really didn't consider that my mortal remains would end up as a snack for a six-foot long worm with a mouth straight out of Freud's worst acid trip. Oh sure, I know we *all* end up as food for something, but really, that's not what I had in mind.
So scratch burial at sea off my list. Which kind of made me wonder what I *would* like to happen to my corpse after death. I guess in many ways it's really rather academic. I don't *honestly* believe I'll have need of it once I've popped off, despite muttered suggestions by fellow Catholics that, come the glorious day, all those people who were cremated are going to be red faced and lacking a body.
Nevertheless, I don't think just plain old interment in the ground really makes the statement I was hoping for. Anyway, I've decided I should like to be preserved for all time like Lenin, only in a more vigorous, animated pose. Lying down under glass seems all a bit apathetic for my tastes. Pickle me, wax me, and have me standing in a pose of triumph, fist raised.
That's how I'll face eternity.
Of course, after enough time has passed I'll probably end up in someone's closet under a pile of old magazines and blankets. Doubtless years would pass and eventually I'd be discovered and put on display as a curio at some small town museum or traveling freak show, alongside the only one-headed cow left alive and Britney Spears' toe-nail clippings.
In the end, after countless millennia, I will be worshipped by a race of savage, sub-human, cannibals, the only survivors of some future apocalyptic catastrophe. They'll decorate me in garlands of flowers and lay before me the skulls of their enemies. Perhaps they will quietly wonder at my glassy stare and noble, but oddly wax-like, visage. But always they will worship and fear me.
Seems only reasonable, really.