My Burial by Hanns Heinz Ewers

My Burial is a light hearted story about a corpse that wants to have a little fun at his funeral and gets into trouble with the law. This story has never been translated into English before. Here is the link:

My Burial

Here is a short excerpt:

It sounded out across the cemetery to where another group was singing at the 3rd crossroads, 8 corridors down and left from the main road. That is to say, to where another funeral was taking place at grave #48679 on the left side diagonally across from me.

They were burying some honorable Privy Councillor and there was a horrendous number of people, Professors, Judges, Military Officers and wealthy industrialists"all refined people! But it was still only an old style funeral without Red Riders.

The Chief Rider waited politely until the people finished singing. Then he cried anew, "Now we sing the favorite song of the departed."

"Daughter of Zion be glad"," but he couldn't finish because the fat pastor began a droning eulogy over at the other funeral.

The Chief Rider waited another five minutes, ten minutes, but the pastor would not stop and was making it bad for me.

"Such speech will speed the decomposition of my corpse considerably," I thought to myself.

The Chief Rider thought so too and looked at his watch. But the pastor talked and talked.

Finally it was too long for the Chief Rider. He had only been paid for two hours. He commanded anew and all forty-five Red Riders let out once more:

"Daughter of Zion be glad!"

The pastor fought on and would not give in. But what is the power of a preacher against forty-five Red Riders? I felt solid satisfaction that the youths were winning and my modern funeral would clear the battlefield and put the old middle class world to shame.

The pastor stopped. But the clergy can never really be defeated. That will not do. He spoke to a couple of gentlemen in top hats and they in turn spoke to some guards. The guards put their helmets on their heads and came over to my grave. They were eager to speak with the Chief Rider but he held his position.

"We are doing our job," he said coldly.

"Do you have a permit?" One of the guards asked.

"Certainly!" The Chief Rider answered and reached into his wallet. "Here it is. An official permit for my Red Riders!"

"Hmm," remarked the guard. "A permit for burials?"

"The Red Riders will do anything!" The Chief declared bravely.

"Bravo! Bravo!" I cried in my crate.

"No one here shouts Bravo!" The guard yelled.

He demanded that all the Red Riders leave but the Chief Rider would not. He was not yet finished with the celebration that he had been commissioned and paid for. He was an honorable man and his highest principle was a strict sense of duty. He requested that the guards leave in an orderly way.

"Such a shrewd citizen!" I thought. "Now it will get into the press and make good publicity for him."

The guards yelled but the Chief Rider yelled even louder. Slowly all the Professors, Judges, Military Officers and wealthy industrialists came over from the other funeral and mixed in. When the pastor came it was entirely too late.

He saw the Red Riders in their red caps and jackets with cigarettes in their mouths.

"Pfui!" He said.

Then he took his glasses off and set them on my crate.

" 'Fragile', 'Do not drop', What's going on here?" He asked sharply.

It was little Fritz that gave him the dreadful answer. He really couldn't smoke and the cigarette was making him sick. He bent forward and then back and then forward again in even faster motion. That's when the accident happened all over the black gown of the pastor.

At first he was speechless, but then everyone was trying to give him his or her handkerchiefs. He got hold of himself and declared seriously:

"That really oversteps all boundaries. I am publicly offended."

"I am also publicly offended," voiced a gentleman with twenty-seven medals.

"We have jurisdiction because we are publicly offended," said the guards.

Things were getting much too colorful for me. I saw that I must come to the help of my hard-pressed Red Riders. I shoved the lid open, stood up and cried in wrath.

"And I, gentlemen, for your disrespectful participation in my burial, I am publicly offended!"

The pastor stared horrified into the grave.

"Is this a Christian burial?" He stammered.

"No," I said. "This is a modern burial with Red Riders."