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We dab our cheeks. A reverent hush fills the room.
“He’s gone,” she whispers, as the mortician palms the replicator’s ‘dematerialize’ sensor.

As burial alternatives become mainstream, science fiction and reality combine to provide us with new solutions to our cemetery space deficits. Inspired by these developments, and anthropological research into death rituals, D. A. Xiaolin Spires ushers the reader into a world where death means total absence. This piece reminds me of the upcoming book by Caitlin Doughty, From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World to Find The Good Death. Could dematerialisation come into conflict with the centuries of intricate death rituals practiced by many human cultures? // Alex Massey

//D.A. Xiaolin Spires showers ultrasonically for deep pore cleansing. Work in Clarkesworld and Analog. @spireswriter daxiaolinspires.wordpress.com//