(This is a story of the continued sagas of Reverend Magadi. The sequel.)
Adam loved Cryonics. It was his most favourite unit among the many others that comprised of his Cremation Science major. As a requirement to the wider Chemical engineering degree course carriculum, each student was required to individually research on a project. Adam had in mind putting up a crematory. In the project report, he had to work out the logistics involved. This was two-fold. One was the initial capital investment and the subsequent maintenance costs of the equipment. Two was the “customers” issue-whether deceased families would be willing to dispose off their loved ones by burning the corpses.
The idea was borne by Rev. Magadi, Adam’s father. He was the incumbent arch-diocescern arch-deacon. He was an extremely ambitious man who reckoned it was possible to manufacture crude oil from cremated remains! He argued that since one of the sources of crude oil is fossil fuels which is gotten from organic matter (like human beings) that died, was buried long ago and has been subjected to very high temperatures and pressures that occur naturally under the earth crust;- if it can be possible to create these conditions artificially, then it can also be possible to manufacture crude oil artificially.
This inspired Adam to carry out a research on it. He put the idea through a rigorous feasibility study and came up with a research paper titled “ARTIFICIAL OIL MINES”, which contained many facts. That the world population, at 6.6 Billion and eight deaths occurring per every a thousand lives, this means 52 Million deaths per the world population in real-time. The average weight of one person’s cremated remains is 2.7 Kilograms (1.8 Kgs- 3.6 Kgs.), which arithmetically translates to 140 Million Kg. of cremated remains at any one time (even without factoring in the world population growth rate). This means that, the world can, at the current death rate, sustain One hundred and forty thousand tones of crude oil at any one time from human beings cremations alone, which gives the 83 Million barrels of crude oil a day (what the world currently produces), a run for its money; considering the fact that the natural crude oil reserves contain only a fraction of human organic matter.
There were hindrances to this idea. Mainly ideological challenges.
Reverend Magadi seconded his son in all his endeavors. “Son, this is a noble idea that can even win the Nobel peace prize. Remember, in the year 2005, the Nobel peace laureate won the prize on an almost similar platform. She advocated planting of trees to provide an alternative source of energy. This, according to her would help curb the fighting for oil as the sole source of energy and the regional fragmentations as a result of scrambling for the resource. Son, when this idea comes to pass, instead of America waking up one day and force their way into the Iraqi oil fields, each country will assume a sovereign, almost sacred duty to transform its fallen citizenry into the black gold. All countries of the world will have oil! Resource distribution will be more equitable, international over-dependency will go down and the shape of world politics will take a positive turn towards peace. Scramble for the natural resource will end since then, people will get the true picture (and America
Adam was amused by his fathers analogy. He recalled a theory he studied in school. The Malthusian theory. It predicts that in time, the world population will rise to overwhelm the resources that occur naturally to sustain it. This reinforces the need to seek alternative sources of the resources since man can’t obviously do without them.
It was on a Sunday and Rev. Magadi was on the pulpit. “Fellow Christians, I salute you with a verdict. Today, I wish to emphasize to you that the most important thing in all of us is the soul. The spirit. Our bodies are mortal,- souls are eternal. When we die, our bodies are buried, they go to rot and that’s it. If only we could find value in dead bodies instead of just disposing them in grave yards. Brethren remember, scripture does not reject cremation,” there were murmurs across the congregation. Nevertheless, Rev. Magadi braved them and carried on with his sermon. “I will repeat, scripture does not ban the burn, as long as it’s not done for reasons contrary to biblical teachings.”
There was more disquiet in the church. People appeared openly disturbed by the sermon. Rev. Magadi knew it was no mean feat preaching cremation!-to convince the congregation to opt for cremation as a permanent substitute to burying the dead. This, according to him will help save on land and trees since cemetery gardens and coffins will become history. Unfortunately, even before his sermon was over, almost the entire congregation was out of the church in different opinion groups. "What? cooked flesh to run my car? What the hell is wrong with him?" Most people thought it was absurd, others felt it was a conflict between science and religion while some just couldn’t take any of it.
Rev. Magadi ended up to the psychiatrists. Adam’s research paper ended up in the waste paper basket while Adam himself remains the naïve teenager living under the tutelage of an illusionist.
Isaac Keah. 22.
