Cremation salons.
Suddenly you can’t go anywhere without hearing about cremation salons.
The bitterness of falling for bad advertising does not afflict those who spend their money and their hours at Brooklyn’s new Cremation Salons and Social Clubs.
Advertised primarily on late-night AM radio and low level Internet blogs the Cremation Salons attract a surprisingly incisive clientele, savvy to gluttonies of the death industry and wholly ambivalent about prospects for a spiritual afterlife.
The new form of cremation draws those whose disdain for the mythology and iconography of death originally drew them to agnosticism and traditional cremation. The “New Cremation” offers a fuller state of annihilation, diffusing human cargo into vapor, removing even the inconvenience and potential legal liability of survivors scattering cremains in forests or at sea.
As Cremation Salons became more popular they attracted curiosity seekers. Some families wised up to the sensation, selling tickets to cremations, which occured in large oven-like chambers with transparent glass on all sides. Dozens of spectators spent hundreds of dollars each to watch the spectacle, one which quickly lost its grisly overtones as its beauties were explained by critics and newscasters.
Such observers quickly noticed how, in the early stages of the process, the human bodies transformed in unexpected ways. The early stages of the New Cremation transformed skullcaps and transmogrified faces in ways that seemed bizarre but which honored rules of organic physics.
The pre-cremation portion of destroying a body could begin with a skull cap expanding like a mushroom. Or the skull might actually implode somewhat, causing a recessed cranium to redistribute brain matter into other chambers of the head. These seemingly ghastly sites become palatable when observers learn that while the brain matter inside expanded or contracted in tandem with the skull its essential functions were nevertheless undisturbed.
Closely-watched tests on live fleshy animals and freshly dead humans revealed that brains lost no function during this organic transformation.
Appendages were also prone to transformations, though in no case could the results be predicted. One man’s right thumb might become inordinately huge while another man submitted to the same treatment might see no change at all in his fingers or appendages. A cult of mystery arose around uniquenesses of bodily change. Those formerly attracted to full-body tattoos and body art flocked to the Cremation Salons, becoming known as “Pre-Crems” and promising to follow through with complete cremation upon their death.
The term “Pre-Crems” immediately attracted entrepreneurs and branding experts who developed a line of lotions called “Pre-Cream.” Essentially a rebranded version of Avon’s “Skin So Soft” the makers of “Pre-Cream” claimed that applying Pre-Cream to your face before being pre-cremated would fortify your face’s natural oils and toughen the texture of your skin. This was considered attractive to some, while others howled in disbelief.
Politicians eschew the pre-cremation fad but advocates are outspoken in their enthusiasm and many are seemingly unimpeachable in their technical knowledge of the matter.
Cremation salons.
Suddenly you can’t go anywhere without hearing about cremation salons.
