He sits in the shade. Hollow, crumpled and grinning. His head lowered on his chest, not revealing his eyes. His narrow face pale. His fingers long near petrified and thin. His skin, pale, his hair, oily, matted ,black as night, glistening in the half light; and from his mouth a light twisted sniggering cold laughter rises, as like a broken puppet he rises to his feet.

I stare into the half light. My breath barely rises, as he trips forward into the light that shines from the drain above.

‘Johnny is that you?’ His voice a twisted shard that chills me to the bone.

‘Johnny...it’s me...it’s Jake”

I took a step back

‘But you can’t be Jake...your dead.’