I don’t suppose he will see another Spring, I said to him last night. No, he said, probably not even Christmas. We won’t find out, of course. For his mother has gone to spend the festivities with one of her other sons. Their flat below us is all locked up. And their post box next to ours is bulging. Probably with things for him. Death is a impossible thing to make sense of. All that stuff that is left behind. As if the person had never existed. His window is so shut up, with no chance of it opening to reveal him, standing there, in a jumper or maybe even his pyjamas leaning on the sill smoking a fag. Have a good walk, he would say and raise his hand in farewell. Sometimes he would just say ‘Cheers’ or ‘Bye for Now’. Did he know that I was sometimes irritated at having to greet him, preferring to stay lost in my pre-walk reverie? I hope not. I liked him, you see. I still do. He is kind. He was kind. Is he still here? I just don’t know.
