A Good Death
Once upon a time, the world was old. It had grown that way through eons, but those who saw it at its end could have sworn it came about quite quickly.
Lost in a reverie of protection and an attempt to prolong its being, the world's people tried to make it hold on, to sustain it beyond its dying breaths. For, of course, the idea of the world's death terrified them to their very core.
But there was one among the people who stayed by the world's side, and let it confess all its thoughts, and slip gently into its end.
And when that one thought back to the time when the world ended, she always thought the death had been a good one.