Arrowood

by Laura McHugh

He droned on at length, reminding us how much we had in common with the dead: We all had dreams, regrets, accomplishments, people we’d loved and disappointed, and at some point, for each of us, those earthly concerns would fall away, our lives replaced in an instant by darkness or—if you believed—light.

Eyewitness accounts aren’t reliable without evidence to back them up, because memory isn’t fact—it’s our interpretation of what happened, and it can change over time.