Advice for Pallbearers To make the sound of your footsteps disappear requires practice, a cornfield in late autumn when the ground is brittle enough to repeat what it hears. Best if the six of you can go together at dusk, find a barn-owl, a corn-crow will do. See how close you can get before the bird startles, observe the interaction of air and wing. Before you handle the casket, borrow your mother’s finest crystal vase, carry it through the crowded parking lot to the water park, ride the slides. Let nothing shatter. The trick is for the coffin to appear to float, the weight of his failures superfluous. Let him be known as a saint, for a few moments, before he takes up haunting.