By Nicole Jacques

Originally published in Quibble.

A downtown storefront for a discount crematorium always catches my eye when my car is stopped at a nearby traffic light. Cherry red, block-letter signs in each of its dozen windows has boldly advertised the “$975 Complete” cost of its premier package for years. Even during times of soaring consumer prices, the crematorium has managed to keep this low fixed rate, as if the cost of burning bodies is inflation-proof.

Ever an entrepreneur, I once did the math on the money-making potential for this place. Based on some statistical death data, I figured there’s about $43,000 of possible revenue every day from our region. Given that less than half of the dead opt for cremation, plus competition from a couple other pricier crematoriums, I calculated the daily draw here to be about $8,000. Up-sells like urns add up, too. Not bad for a small, independent business with an inevitably steady clientele.

Last summer, I finally walked inside its doors for the first time when I picked up my former mother-in-law there. Claire had died a week earlier, and I’d volunteered to host her while her out-of-state daughter was organizing a memorial. After years of curiosity about the crematorium, I stepped over its threshold wide-eyed, as if I were passing through a mystical portal. I’d anticipated stark white walls, fresh lilies, and somber salesclerks. Instead, I walked into a roadside motel with cheap, splashy furnishings and fake flowers. The blazing red hues from the exterior signage carried over inside to the wine-colored sitting chairs resting against deep burgundy walls. A brick hearth surrounded an ominous gas fireplace, and an ivory couch covered in maroon throw blankets appeared ready to accept a quarter to vibrate. It was a tacky honeymoon suite, only missing the heart-shaped bed.

At the back of the shop, a check-out counter displayed a dozen small shopping bags underneath a hanging wicker basket of nylon roses. I approached it while maintaining what I thought was an appropriate funereal countenance. A short, slight woman stepped between the bags and me and tersely asked for my ID, which I proffered along with the deceased’s name. After a quick review of her clipboard notes, she returned my license to me with one of the shopping bags, which I assumed contained Claire. She began articulating further instructions, but my eyes wandered over her head to a shelf of ceramic and steel urns as ornate as genie lamps — some were gilded in fool’s gold, others had inlaid seagull shapes. The clerk raised her voice and began again, wrestling my attention back to her. I nodded earnestly now, expecting she would finalize our transaction with a condolence that never came. Emotional support may only be included in pricier packages than the one advertised in the window.

I walked out of what had felt like a David Lynch film — replete with eccentric characters and discordant set pieces — and I brought Claire home. In contrast to the crematorium, I gave her a sunny space in my bedroom, atop a shelf of my favorite books, overlooking my perennial garden. She had been packaged into a temporary urn, much like an old coffee tin, for safe keeping. She would eventually be divided among family and friends, taking up space on mantles around the country.

Claire was an easy houseguest for the next few weeks, requiring less attention than a houseplant. Still, her presence made me a little uneasy. She inevitably reminded of my own mortality: upon whose mantle would I sit one day? I had a will that was vague about my final resting place, mostly because I didn’t much care where that place may be. I would, after all, be an unthinking, unfeeling pile of ashes. I’d always figured that if people I love wanted me as an ornament in their living room, I wouldn’t be in a position to complain.

After having hosted a dead person in my own house, though, I’m now positive I’d make for a poor roommate in my death. My post-mortem presence could constantly remind my family — as Claire did me — of what will befall them all someday. I had on x-ray glasses every time I looked at her urn. I saw tiny sharp bone fragments, like broken baby teeth, swirling into a sinkhole of dense gray ash, as if the tin were a morbid blender. Someday that would be me, reduced to a powder, a memory. Another $975 worth of revenue.

Since Claire’s death, the crematorium has started airing a commercial on a local TV channel. Two men in black suits and sunglasses jump into an SUV in double-time, apparently racing off to collect a loved one’s body. Customers can visit the website and click a big, flashing button — it’s red, of course — to call these men to action, as if there’s an immediacy even in death. “Simple, affordable, and respectful,” says the voiceover. Two out of three ain’t bad?

I’ve started researching a more palatable alternative to burial or burning. I’ve read about aquamation, a liquifying process using lye and heat. The cost is double that of cremation, but still well below a burial. Even better, the sterile, watery remains return to the earth. It’s a one-way trip to the aquamation facility, with no post-process pickup required. A similar, albeit slightly pricier, alternative is promession, a procedure in which the body is freeze-dried and then violently shaken into a fine powder that’s used as fertilizer. I could grow grass.

Whatever I choose, it seems inevitable that my last corporeal manifestation will be as revenue, but my family shouldn’t see me that way. They shouldn’t see me at all after I’m gone, whether embalmed, liquified, or burned. Never to be a memento mori, I want to disappear into the ether, as mysterious as death itself. I’ll prepay for my corpse’s disposal, ensuring no one even needs to press that red flashing button on a website. My death will certainly come at a cost, but let it be a price that only I pay.