Issue 1.8 - Marianne Paul

---

​Dead Ends

“When Buddha is done being dead, will he come back?” the boy asks me.
 
I’m not ready to have the death talk with a six-year-old. I know where this ends--when I die, will I come back?
 
He holds a photo of the big hairy family cat that he never met, and whose ashes sit on top of our refrigerator under the fat squat statue of Buddha, the cat's namesake.
 
A thought pops into my mind—maybe the boy is the cat reincarnated.
 
And then the thought dissipates, as all thoughts, and all things, do. 
​

---