Loss stares at the fire in the sky, but only sees the blizzard in his heart.

Loss sits on the step looking out at the patch of concrete that is his garden. Concrete garden. London is reflected back at him in the night sky but he doesn’t see it. All he sees are tiny images, fracturing his vision, breaking through the white noise in his head.

It’s one of those nights. Like London is on fire. The clouds have formed a roof over the city and they are glowing red, lit by a million street-lamps. Loss sees them but doesn’t see them. He sees the red London sky, but a thousand years ago. He sees the red sky of when his daughter was young. He sees them in a flat with no air conditioning, melting in the summer night. He sees them dragging an old sofa onto the flat roof of the flat, laughing with the absurdity of it, and sitting up there drinking coke and eating chicken Shawarma with pickles and hummus. He sees them staring at the radioactive sky with his arm around her, sat on the sofa with her curled into him like a promise.

Suzanne.

‘I love you daddy.’

All gone. Buried under years of pain and regret and locked in rooms in his mind he barely knows the way to any more.

Loss stares at fire in London’s sky, but only sees the blizzard in his heart