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.

Recorded Alex Lawther said elsewhere, not written here
I think we go back into the earth.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 September 2025 source ↗

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Winston Churchill Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1940–1945 and 1951–1955; Member of Parliament 1900–1964
I cannot pretend to feel impartial about the colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns. When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject. But then I shall require a still gayer palette than I get here below. I expect orange and vermilion will be the darkest, dullest colours upon it, and beyond them there will be a whole range of wonderful new colours which will delight the celestial eye.
Recorded Essay first published in the Strand Magazine in 1921–22 and collected in Amid These Storms, 1932, Winston S. Churchill, Painting as a Pastime, Project Gutenberg Canada, 1932 source ↗
I think we’re definitely gone, but I do think people leave traces everywhere from what they did in life, and live on and continue to make an impact through the ripple effect of that.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 May 2026 source ↗

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