accidentally like a martyr

It’s a sure thing that by noon everyone has thought at least once of death, if not their own directly, then indirectly and subconsciously, since every death draws that line.

N. was confronted with it first thing in the morning, when she switched on the radio.

P. got a glimpse of it when two teenagers rushed across the street to catch the bus. Alongside the tension, he resented it, as if the boys had dragged him out into the traffic, too. (The boys managed not to be hit by a car.)

T., W. and Wm., and everyone else who went through the train station saw it on the front page of the newspaper.

U. read about a character’s suicide in the chapter she finished on the subway to work.

O., the office hypochondriac, thought of it at least three times, always directly and without embellishment.

S. put it out of his mind when he killed a couple fruit flies in the kitchen, which he considered his right to do.

E. had to deal with it when he read about the Georgian luger who crashed, and again when he saw a photo of the mother mourning, and wondered if death would have her, too.