“What would you do if I died?”

What would you do if I died?
If you died I would want to die too.
So you could be with me?
Yes. So I could be with you.
Okay.

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

This is a piece of dialogue between father and son (a young boy) in a post-apocalyptic world where the two try to outlast cannibals, rapists, and disease.

Yet somehow these lines are absolutely relatable for parents in the modern first-world societies, where the most danger we face daily is being stuck in traffic.