Quote: The disappearing body quickly became shorthand. Anything lost was considered pocketed by our ambulatory corpse on its way home. Unexpected noises in the corridors were the incompetent creeping of the revenant.
This is China Miéville’s disappearing body from The Design, published in his collection of short stories Three Moments of an Explosion. A body has disappeared from the dissection room where medical students study anatomy, and we are hearing about the atmosphere that developed thereafter. A morbid setting, but these are students of medicine, who have learned, perforce, to joke about their environment.
What makes the Quote quiver?
Deadpan delivery of compressed paradox.
A Quiver Of Quotes 