My attendance at the funeral is mandatory, but I do not know who is memorialized by the ceremony. I can only hope that my dress is appropriate, but looking about me at the other celebrants causes me to doubt. However, my linen summer suit attracts no attention, but rather my lack of a masque causes something of a sensation. I believe that I am fortunate to have stopped at the barber for a shave. Whatever my expected part in this affair, the spectacle is unlike any I have ever before seen, involving a vessel in the shape of a viking longship constructed out of burnished metal, into which is loaded the corpse and a selection of grave goods, the whole being set aflame. Some sort of cupric acid treatment has obviously been applied to the interior surfaces of the altar, as the flames which thus erupt from the vessel are a brilliant green, and shimmer and reflect off the glassine sail rigged above the funerary pyre. The heat released by these preparations is more than sufficient to buoy the vessel into the sky, driven upwards by that billowing sail at a fantastic rate until it appears to the eye as if a new, green star has risen in the firmament. I am weeping, and I do now know why.
