Himself

by Jess Kidd

She’s put him out like a cat a million times but like a cat he has a habit of slinking back and curling up in the warm corners of her mind.

For the dead don’t change or grow. They’re just echoes of the stories of their own lives sung back in the wrong order: arsewards. They’re the pattern on closed eyelids after you turn away from a bright object. They’re twice-exposed film. They’re not really here, so cause and effect means nothing to them.