Ushers

by Joe Hill

“I am a therapist,” the kid said and grinned. “Well, hoping to be, anyway. Just a counselor so far.”

What?

“Because they had company when they got on board,” Martin Lorensen told him. “They weren’t alone. None of them. When you die, you aren’t alone. They’re always there, at the end, to collect you.” “They?” Duvall asked, the skin on his forearms prickling with goose bumps. In the bookstore café, Martin had come across as a cheerful class clown but entirely sane. It always gave Duvall a chill when someone who was mentally disturbed dropped his mask and showed his real face.

People die. I don’t want to be the reason some live and some don’t. It’s best to just . . . be a mammal. Eat as much fresh fruit as you can. Spend time with trees. Hug the people you love. Accept that death is as natural as the rest of life. Dogs understand that. Cats understand that. Only humans have a hard time with it.