The Dead, the Cadavers

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 "If everyone is dead then why don't I remember dying?"
- A clueless sod to a Dustman

"If we're all alive then why don't I remember being born?"
- The Dustman's response

To Die, Perchance to Dream

A more morbid philosophy you'll not find this side of the Grey Waste, cutter. The Dustmen believe that the inhabitants of the Multiverse are already dead. Some are more dead than others, perhaps, but even the living are actually dead. "If this existence was whole the point of life, then someone's got their sums wrong", as Qaida once said. Some Dustmen reckon that this stage of the great cycle -- that which most cutters view as 'life' -- is in fact a low point. Maybe that's why they're so sodding miserable all the time.

Presumably, after a body passes through this particular phase it'll emerge into "life", as the Dustmen would understand it. "So why don't the Dead just up and hang themselves from the leafless tree", you might well be asking, "It's not like we'll miss the depressing sods".

Well, the Dustmen would take issue with this. You can't just put yourself in the Dead-Book or let someone else do it for you; that's like trying to cheat the Multiverse. No, you've got to live your "life" and die naturally, or you'll be recycled and made to do it all again. And as for them being depressing; that's the Dustmen trying to move themselves closer to the state of True Death (as they call it) by shedding their emotions, the last semblance of life.

And if you've ever had to share a drink with one of the Dead, you'll know full well just how good at it they can be...

Introduction: [coming soon] Philosophy by Numbers: Teetering on the Brink of Life and Death A macabre tale of one of the Dead, who explains the Way Things Are to his Cadaverous charges. Movers and Shakers: The School of Life A school of Life run by a faction of Death, does that sound like a Good Idea to you, cutter? Visionaries: Zhiki D'Vorkk Who faces Life by being Dead, and commands Attention through his Silence Visionaries: Dherzil Kane Who helps the Dead to die Properly, and seeks to peacefully Purge the faction of its Unliving See Also: The Mortuary The Dustman's Web Headquarters (not a part of the Mimir).

 

Copyright 1997 by Jon Winter, artwork by Chris Appelhans
Thanks to Valdrax for the Dustman quote