The Adding Machine

This scene begins in a graveyard with a young couple who are speaking loudly and standing on Zero’s fresh grave. She suggests that she did six months in jail because of Zero, who had called the police to report an incident of indecent exposure in his neighborhood earlier that year. After Judy and her partner leave, his grave opens up and a confused Zero pops to the surface and begins walking around. 

He soon finds another ghost named Shrdlu, a grubby man with insomnia. They agree to keep each other company, smoking cigarettes to keep the mosquitos away and swapping crime stories. They soon realize that they were both murderers. Shrdlu killed his own mother, whom he believes was a “saint,” whereas he is a horrible person with a “sinful nature.” After reading Treasure Island, Shrdlu felt compelled to run away from home but was returned; he then became a proofreader. He and his religious mother attend church three times a day. One evening, the minister, Dr. Amaranth, comes to dinner and as Shrdlu is cutting the leg of lamb, he reaches out and slits his mother’s throat. He is very invested in being punished as a murderer and a sinner, and craves the “eternal flames.