The Midnight Train

The Hundred Deaths of Wilbur Budd

There were many deaths in life.

A person, it seemed to the Ghost now, died in stages. And so it was particularly poignant to see himself at a young age.

To come was the death of youth, of ideals.

Of connection, friendships, principles, love.

And these were often just choices. Choices that had seemed right at the time, in the moment, but when you got to the end, to the very last death, you looked back and realised all the lost versions that you left along the way.

He missed, right then, the person he had once been. And the goodness that had existed inside him, as natural as the green in grass.