The Things They Carried

In a dream Timmy has about Linda, what does she say death is like?

In the story "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, Chapter 22 (The Lives of the Dead)

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Death is like being inside a book that nobody's reading.

From the text:

"Well, right now," she said, "I'm not dead. But when I am, it's like ... I don't know, I guess it's like being inside a book that nobody's reading."

"A book?" I said.

"An old one. It's up on a library shelf, so you're safe and everything, but the book hasn't been checked out for a long, long time. All you can do is wait. Just hope somebody'll pick it up and start reading." Linda smiled at me. "Anyhow, it's not so bad," she said. "I mean, when you're dead, you just have to be yourself."

Source(s)

The Things They Carried