The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

by Josie Silver

I almost expect him to fade away, but he doesn’t. He just rounds the corner, lost to the world, to some corporate coffee client, to the girl on platform 4, to all the places I cannot be.

We blink as we spill out into the weak early-summer sunshine

‘Your life is still your life, Lydia. You’re still here, inconveniently breathing, watching the sun go down and the moon come up regardless of whether you think it’s got a damn nerve showing its shiny face every day.’

Sledging down the hill behind the house on winter mornings when we were kids, our backsides on Mum’s tea trays: I will if you will.

It’s like that trick with the tablecloth and the teacups except we’re human fucking beings getting broken, not teacups,

He’s still gone however you look at it, but there was something almost comforting about blaming it on the weather.