God was killing me. On a diet of fat mince. And sliced white bread. Doughy and wet. Wrapped in greaseproof paper. Stop it running away. Sterilised milk. Tasted of rice pudding. But didn’t go off till next day. If it didn’t get too hot.

Furniture scavenged from derelict houses. Burnt-out or abandoned buildings. Fine old Victorian wood, neglected. Smelling of must or smoke.

Odd little secret histories. Tucked away in the corners.

A photograph from the 1940’s. Photo of a stranger, probably dead now. Captured at a point in a past life. You make up your own stories. You didn’t know them. If they smile, were they happy? Or only that once? When the photographer said ‘cheese’? Funny man.

Or a driving licence. The name of someone.

Does that make them more of a person? Than the one whose face you saw? But whose name you did not know? From the photograph? Should you assume they were one and the same? Don’t be the detective. Dead people give up no answers. Imagination does that. But won’t make truths. People’s pasts are only stories. Once they are gone. Once there is no one to remember them.

God was killing me there. I had to get out. I wasn’t ready yet. To become someone else’s story. Hadn’t lived my own life. I might still have time. To become someone else. Someone who didn’t break into abandoned houses. Or god-forsaken empty churches. Just so I could live.

But I couldn’t blame god. I had been misled. By the shadow of his empty house. Slanting across my window. Couldn’t find him here. Just the legacy of my species crumbling. And the dead, bravely asserting their absence.

I had to go. Before the blood in my veins turned to grease. And only kept for a day. Unless the sun shone down. With its happy face. Curdling everything.