"It All Would Have Been Quite Clear to You If You Had Died on Schedule"

"Make Way for Your Corpse."
By Milton Lesser (later legally changed to Stephen Marlowe, 1928-2008).
First appearance: Fantastic Adventures, December 1952.
Short short story (5 pages).
Parental caution: Strong language.
Online HERE (smudgy text).

"You've made a horrible mess of things, Mr. Slagg, a horrible mess."

If you met someone who looked just like you and said the following, would you do it?

. . . "Look, all you have to do is go outside and get yourself killed. It's not too much to ask."  . . .

Resources:
- To judge from his presence on the Internet, our author Milton Lesser (a.k.a. Stephen Marlowe) could not be described as obscure: Wikipedia HERE; The Guardian obit HERE; Mystery*File HERE; The Thrilling Detective HERE; LocusMag HERE; FictionMags HERE; the SFE HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and Project Gutenberg HERE.

Category: D.O.A.