The question
What happens when we die?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring late-stage question in The Guardian Q&A, with materially different answers on publisher-hosted pages.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The rest is silence.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 February 2026 source ↗
Being alive on Earth is challenging and I like to believe that whatever happens after is filled with peace and ease.
I have never been able to become an atheist and, even though I know it is completely irrational and cannot be backed up, I think when I die I’m going to glory.
The contributor to the programme I remember with the most pleasure is the man who said that not existing for thousands and thousands of years before his birth had never worried him for a moment, so why should going back into non-existence at this death cause him dismay? Everyone laughed when he said that and so did I, and as I laughed I thought: “Dead right!”
Other people get sad.
When I was doing a masterclass at a theatre and I had to leave the stage because I was about to shit my pants.
To my father, who was aggressively indifferent to what I was doing. He did say sorry to me when he was dying and I don’t think I was very gracious.
Isn’t it enough just to be remembered?
At university in the 60s, I thought social justice was going to improve exponentially. How wrong I was.
Edward Bond, the playwright, said I was like a turd flowing on the effluent of British culture.
In despair, because of my wife’s illness.
Jenny Diski, Roger Ebert, Alex Lawther, Mark Radcliffe, Esther Freud, Shobna Gulati
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