A dim reminder of something actual. Even a carcass on a butcher’s table has more dignity. Big and bloody at least it represents what it was. You might say ‘poor pig’. But you respect the fact that it has lived. But this? This echo I am, for lack of any other word, is bare, meek. Neither alive nor dead. There is something pathetic about it. I was not meek. No. At training, they called me ‘The Grey’. My hair was the colour of Gun Metal, but I could out run the captain. Strong legs. I was vain about them. I’d sit with them angled straight out from my body. Watch the muscle under the skin like a snake under water. It’s not just limbs you miss. There is a nauseas ache for the whole body. A part of the mind that does not stop mourning. For touch. For all the things it can’t express.renamer