Covered with filth, he entered the banquet-room where his own obsequies were being held, and struck all men utterly aghast, rumour having falsely noised abroad his death. At last terror melted into mirth, and the guests jeered and taunted one another, that he whose last rites they were celebrating as though he were dead, should appear in the flesh.
— Gesta Danorum, Book 3 (the story of Amleth)
Rain falls. A priest mutters somber words. Slowly, with measured movements, I help lower my best friend's body into the ground.
"To tell you the truth, Arthur," says a voice in my earpiece, "it's a bit of an odd feeling, being at your own funeral."
To tell you the truth, it is a bit of an odd feeling when a disembodied, digital copy of the man you're burying provides color commentary during the burial.
— Anti-Hero, by Jonathan Wood
"John [Dillinger] LOVES a good funeral; especially his own. Nothing tickles his fancy like hearing guys who hated his guts go on about what a great person he was. John says that nothing hits people right where they live, gets them up on their hind legs, like someone important to them dying."
"Why is nobody crying? I saved all your asses so many times. Appreciate me!"
— Penny (invisible, at his funeral), The Magicians (2016)
If there was one thing the Orzhov were good at, it was burying their own. Not that they had a higher rate of death than the other guilds—according to civic records, full Orzhov members lived longer than most people—but when someone died, the people responsible for organizing the funeral did so with the full awareness that their absent colleagues were likely to show up and critique the flowers.
— Magic: The Gathering: Murders at Karlov Manor, Episode 7
