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Air Conditioned Coffins
Air-conditioned coffins seem to be a hot business in Novi Sad, Serbia. Originally, they were used to keep bodies from decomposing too rapidly in the hot summer months.
Now, however, some people are buying them for a more afterlife comfort:
"People imagine they want to feel comfortable in a coffin. They feel they want to be as relaxed as possible as they make their journey to the next world," said a spokesman.
(Serbian Air Conditioned Coffins)
Although I wouldn't classify this as a prediction, I'm still strongly reminded of the cold-pac bins from Philip K. Dick's masterpiece Ubik. In the story, people could be specially treated and then chilled to maintain some level of brain activity. Dick called it "half-life".
Herbert made his way back to the cold-pac bins to search out number 3054039-B.When he located the correct party he scrutinized the lading report attached. It gave only fifteen days of half-life remaining. Not very much, he reflected; automatically he pressed a portable protophason amplifier into the transparent plastic hull of the casket, tuned it, and listened at the proper frequency for indication of cephalic activity...
The customer seated himself facing the casket, which steamed in its envelope of cold-pack; he pressed an earphone against the side of his dead and spoke firmly into the microphone: "Flora, dear, can you hear me?"
All the Serbians need now are protophason amplifiers to listen for brain activity in those air-conditioned coffins, and then they'll be in business. PKD called such an establishment a moratorium.
From Austrian Times via Treehugger.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/12/2009)
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