BARBARIC MERCIES

Transport of the Dead

15 Transport of the Dead The only official method, of course, is with scholar and priest always aboard. Dead are lined symmetrically onto shelves, then stacked in rows as if on heavenly baking racks, all feet pointing east. A cross of holy water stripes each forehead, a star each chin. A translucent wafer is placed on each blue tongue. The deads’ hands are posed in an attitude of grace, perhaps in anticipation of their flight. Scripture and history’s data are chanted over the clatter of ignited engines, and the ascent begins. Of course, practical realities demand that most transported dead be loaded at night, tipped from dump trucks in a tangle of faces and legs, arms and charred feet a crazy gumbo, or like discarded figures from a child’s toy box. They are sprayed with anti-odorant for the long trip to the desert. Many officials and editors of major periodicals know this, and video was rumored of a dock worker fanning a spray of urine across bodies as he laughed with co-workers, quote,“this’ll preserve you bastards.” In either case, verified are cargo planes the size of football fields, the color of baked clay, wings marked “Disaster Relief” in flawless Roman lettering. 16 The real truth, though, is that the legions of dead are grotesquely under-reported even at the highest levels. Most never get off the ground at all. They are burned where they lie, buried under blankets of gravel. Priest and scholar would never let it rest, and what good could that do the families, after all? Why fan the flame? Let them have their rituals and hallelujahs, leave alone those who sweat for a living, who carry the weight of secrets, of camels and angels and earth’s molten core. ...