“I wonder if it’s cold in there?” he whispers to himself as he sits next to his sobbing mother. The least he can do is put his hand on her trembling lap. He looks away from the lifeless, wooden box to look up at mum. Noting the make-up concealing her wrinkles, he can’t help but think she might be next. He wonders how it would feel if he couldn’t speak to his mum or dad ever again. Who would make his packed lunch, take him to football or give him a shoulder carry? He sits helplessly, at a complete loss. These thoughts sadden him until an even scarier worry creeps into his young, vivid imagination – maybe he’s next.

He questions how it will feel, whether it will hurt, whether it’ll go black, whether he will be sad if he ever finds out it is ‘his time’. This thought makes him squeeze his mother’s clammy hand so much she responds with a false smile through her wet face. You don’t smile when you die, he ponders, granddad didn’t, grandma didn’t, nor did Uncle George and he always smiled when they played together. He knows that when people die, their eyes close, as if they are asleep forever. He doesn’t want to sleep forever. He hates sleeping. Sometimes he runs into his wardrobe and hides from mum and dad so he doesn’t have to go to sleep. But the wardrobe is dark too. Too dark. Dead dark. When he plays with his friends he never wants to be the baddie because the baddie has to die and that is something he desperately never wants to do.

He is always nice to the old people who live where his mum works because he knows they are closest to the big, cold box - the blackness. He helps them do things they have trouble with because he wants their short time left awake to be as easy as possible. They don’t seem to mind when he asks if they are dreading it; the end. In fact, most of them say they are ‘ready’. He isn’t ready. He’ll never be ready.