How will your life end?

Will it be torn from your grasp in a blinding flash, or will it leak away unnoticed as you contemplate the ceiling above your bed?

Do you thirst or dread to know the hour of your leave-taking? Do you care how your end comes about, whether by your own hand or another’s? Will it happen decades from now in sour-smelling obscurity or tonight in the back of a posh limousine after a glass or two of champagne? Would you feel better if there were a murderer to be punished, or could you settle for being the collateral damage of ill chance? 

Alice Comyn was a student of piano performance getting by on an insufficient grant from her college and the kindness of two men: one, a distinguished descendant of European nobility who was too good at playing bridge, and the other, an obscure automobile mechanic who was too good at fixing wrecks. Although Alice’s chief business was communing with long-dead composers, she was still young enough to believe that she would live forever and that her knotted fingers and hunched back could be redeemed by fame.

Herbert Bailey was a mostly-retired lawyer whose interests in immortality and notoriety had faded. His plan had been to rent a small apartment in southeastern Evanston so that he could take long walks by the lake in all weathers. To pass the balance of his time, he meant to re-read every book that his undergraduate degree in English literature had rendered repellent and to take a nap every afternoon until, one day, he would simply fail to wake up. Meanwhile, he had become Alice’s new neighbor across the hall.

Herbert’s old life had been given over to preparing for court, attending court, doing things to people because of what happened in court, and reporting all of the endless court proceedings in excruciating detail to the faceless insurance companies which had been his clients. Now, much to his surprise, he found that listening to Alice practice hour on hour was both soothing and exciting. For her part, Alice came to believe that Herbert must be desperately hard of hearing.

To die as one plans might be consoling or boring. To die in some unforeseen fashion might engender disappointment or surprise. Either way, the feeling would pass leaving only the darkness behind.

To survive, however, is another matter entirely.