Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett

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Johnny hesitated. I could turn around now, he thought, and go home. And if I turn around, I’ll never find out what happens next. I’ll go away and I’ll never know why it happened now and what would have happened next. I’ll go away and grow up and get a job and get married and have children and become a granddad and retire and take up bowling and go into Sunshine Acres and watch daytime television until I die, and I’ll never know. And he thought: Perhaps I did. Perhaps that all happened and then, just when I was dying, some kind of angel turned up and said would you like a wish? And I said, yes, I’d like to know what would have happened if I hadn’t run away, and the angel said, Okay, you can go back. And here I am, back again. I can’t let myself down. The world waited.