Mourners Told To Hum

Priya Nair wiped bright teal mould onto her uncle's urn shelf on Friday afternoon.

She is one of hundreds of young residents across Marius Basin applying bio-reactive grave spores to family crypts. Cultured in kitchen sinks, the fungus produces vivid neon rings across the basalt vaults.

It looks tidy.

The municipal burial board is currently receiving furious delegations from elder guilds after the spores colonised the dome's central misting grid. The growth binds to dental enamel through ordinary tap water. During Tuesday's dim-room memorial for a district pipe-fitter, forty mourners opened their mouths for the opening hymn and lit the chapel in electric green.

"People were trying to grieve," said guild warden Hideo Sato, whose own teeth cast a lime beam across his lapel during the service. "Then the choir opened up. You could see right down their throats. It was like looking into a pair of high-beams."

Asked whether the pumps could be flushed before the next wake, water supervisor Aris Thorne said the pipes held eighty thousand tonnes of fluid, and that this was simply the colour of the water now.

Officiants have advised future congregations to hum, though early trials suggest a low baritone still causes the nostrils to pulse like emergency beacons.