Now when I first started asking what happens when we die, the grown-ups around me at the time answered with a typical English mix of awkwardness and half-hearted Christianity, and the phrase I heard most often was that granddad was now "up there looking down on us," and if I should die too, which wouldn't happen of course, then I too would go up there, which made death sound a lot like an existential elevator.
Cando comecei a preguntar que ocorre ao morrer, os adultos do meu redor nese momento contestaban cunha típica mestura inglesa de incomodidade e cristianismo sen moita convicción, e a frase que oín máis a miúdo era que o avó agora estaba "aí arriba mirándonos", e que se eu tivese que morrer, o que por suposto non ía pasar, entón eu tamén iría para alá arriba, o que fixo que a morte me soase bastante a un ascensor existencial.