The Dead Walk Backwards

The imagery of the dead walking backwards reminds me of something my husband told me:

 When he was a little boy in Nepal ,one evening, he saw a man walking-but the man’s legs were actually backwards.  He was terrified and thought it was a ghost.  Spoooooooky, huh?

On Walking Backwards

My mother forbade us to walk backwards.  That is how the dead walk, she would say.  Where did she get this idea?  Perhaps from a bad translation.  The dead, after all, do not walk backwards but they do walk behind us.  They have no lungs and cannot call out but would love for us to turn around.  They are victims of love, many of them.

by Anne Carson