First of all, your writing is exceptionally good, very literary and stylish, but it reads more like a novel than a screenplay. In a screenplay, every line you write must describe a visual image or an action, and when you start a new paragraph, it means it's a new shot.
I like the fact that it's a silent piece with only the voice of the narrator: that's an interesting challenge and it gives the film great solidity and coherence. I imagine this can be filmed as an animation, 3D or stop-motion, in the style of "Shaun the Sheep" maybe. I also like the fact that it's a pastoral tale showing farmers and undertakers, it's very original and different from most short films we see lately.
Concerning the story, I think there's a small duality: if the moral of the story is to "stick to what you know", then maybe the undertaker shouldn't kill the farmer. Maybe you should just show him neglecting his job, getting in trouble with the families of the deceased, losing his business, etc. In your current story, the moral should rather be "don't kill out of jealousy" (cause that's the real issue here), and then it's a different theme, more like the movie "Amadeus"; you should probably focus more on the evolution of his maddening jealousy till the point of eruption...
Also, I like how it's divided in chapters, and I would use the competition indications ("third competition: bulgy and beautiful") as superscript, no need to have them as banners.
All in all, I think it's a very solid basis for a great animated short. It just needs a bit of tweaking, but as people in the industry say: "writing is essentially re-writing", so have fun with it
Best of luck,

More comments! Thank you - I really appreciate the time to read and the effort to write.

Great website, Simply Scripts, innit.

Col and Maroun - Thanks for getting into it, and I’m glad to hear it was not an unenjoyable journey. But I do note this point well:

Quoted from Maroun In a screenplay, every line you write must describe a visual image or an action, and when you start a new paragraph, it means it's a new shot.

I need to get much more precise about that. (I used to want to be a fiction writer, see. Had dishearteningly little success with that, figured it wasn’t a way to earn money for twin babies, and went corporate. The hangover is, I get fond of fine verbiage. And that’s not always helpful. Ironically, I actually prefer screenwriting and directing BECAUSE it’s less about fancy language and more about a functional and efficient route to the heart of a subject.)

Question though: is a spec script more of a sales tool than a shooting script which is a precise tool? Does that mean different rules apply?

Should a spec script use any trick in the book to bring the audience along, whereas a shooting script can be boring as hell as long as it guides the film crew?

Quoted from Colkurtz8 p.s. Is this meant to be a comedy?

You know when you’ve failed to tell a joke when you have to say “that’s a joke” at the end.  

I started out with the idea for the ending, thinking Christmas fright story, then started writing and absolutely felt like it was an exaggerated macabre comedy from the first scene. Hence the mismatch between end point and the rest, I think.

Maroun, I had not occurred to me that this could be animated, but I can totally imagine that. Just don’t know a single thing about creating animation!

Thanks very much for the feedback - very useful! And Happy New Year, one and all!