How Not to Die Alone

by Richard Roper

The three of them responded with the enthusiasm a chicken might if it were asked to wear a prosciutto bikini and run into a fox’s den.

Loneliness, however, was ever vigilant, always there to slow-clap his every stumble.

The truth was that it had made him see that everyone who died alone had their own version of that chair. Some drama or other, no matter how mundane the rest of their existence was. And the idea that they’d not have someone there to be with them at the end, to acknowledge that they’d been a person in the world who’d suffered and loved and all the rest of it—he just couldn’t bear the thought of it.

if I could just accept the ending’s coming, then I could concentrate on enjoying the rest of the song so much more.”