In An Effort To Reduce My Carbon Footprint, I’m Composting My Murder Victims

Tod Brubaker
Slackjaw
Published in
3 min readAug 6, 2020

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Illustration by Emily Clouse

For years, I’d been dissolving bodies in hydrofluoric acid and dumping the sludge in a river. It never occurred to me before how terrible that is for the environment.

Between my CIA asset work, cartel contracts, personal grudges, and the odd thrill kill, I probably waste between 20 and 30 people a year. That’s a scary amount of toxic metal, rat poison, and other hazardous chemicals leaching into the groundwater. And the plastic bags I stuff full of body parts and toss off a bridge? Those suckers take more than 1,000 freakin’ years to decompose!

I’ll tell ya, diggin’ up my stockbroker really awakened my environmental consciousness. I heard they were building condos on the dumpsite, so I had to move Robert in a hurry. He was a decent enough guy, but I decided to make a “market correction” about two years ago. I couldn’t believe my eyes — his dentures, pacemaker, and Stryker knee replacement implant were perfectly preserved!

That got me thinkin’ about the impact a rotting corpse can have on the environment. And as someone who is very concerned about climate change, it forced me to reevaluate my disposal methods. Hey, we only have one planet, am I right?

I decided right then and there to compost my climate-denyin’ friend, or what was left of…

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