[Certain]

Hey, I recognize that quote.

This piece was interesting in both approach and execution, mostly in good ways. Let me start by making sure I understand it correctly: The story was about a dead man reflecting on four presences in his life. The first three were a neighbor, his son and his wife. The fourth was the embalmer? I had a hard time figuring out the attachment on that. If I'm on the right track, perhaps a U for "undertaker" would have been the better approach, since the coffin is described, which isn't part of an embalmer's job.

My general feeling was this was a viewing, and as each person passed the corpse, the man discussed his relationship. That approach leads to some fracturing in content, though. What we really had here were four brief character sketches. You executed each individually well, with the arguable exception of the vagueness of the final one.

What I think could have brought this up another level is a better understanding of the dead man. I don't think you would have had to flip the entire concept but rather used each character more for introspection than for John Smith's views on the person he's seeing. What did each person specifically mean to his own identity? That would have unified the piece more.

Still, it's a really cool concept and something I haven't seen before. And you did it well. My criticisms are an attempt at being constructive, not dismissing your work.