The Hiding Place

by C.J. Tudor

I can’t help thinking of the Homer Simpson alternative: “Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.”

I don’t believe in ghosts. My nan was fond of telling me, “It’s not the dead you need to be scared of, love. It’s the living.”

Part of Mum died the night of the crash. The rest of her just took a while to catch up.

Funny how the good memories flit by like butterflies: fleeting, fragile, impossible to capture without crushing them. But the bad ones—the guilt, the shame—they hang on in there, like parasites. Quietly eating you away from the inside.

maybe that’s what churches are for. To give comfort even when, deep down, you know it’s just a pack of lies.