Bill
Bill had thought about parallel universes before. That was common. Everyone knows about parallel universes and the idea that maybe there are multiple realities that never meet where different people, or even different versions of the same people, are living in completely different worlds at the same time.
If there could be parallel universes, he now wondered, maybe there could be perpendicular universes too. People in these time lines would come together only once and then continue on, never intersecting again. They’d go on to live lives totally separate from the ones they’d left behind.
Maybe this life is that single point where the time lines intersect, and death is just what happens when a person’s time line carries on from that point, never crossing paths with any of the same people ever again for the rest of eternity.
Bill couldn’t decide whether the idea was sad or exhilarating, so he just finished his sandwich and went back to work.