The death toll from the burnt-out tower in London keeps rising. There are whispers that the number could hit triple figures, and that some of the victims may never be identified. It’s one of life’s many horrors. These atrocities that snuff out so many before their time- there have been many before, and no doubt they’ll be plenty to come. Sounds callous of me to say, but death and unbecoming are integral parts of existence, and when it comes to drawing the short straw, more often than not it’s the poor and weak that get it in the throat the most, and ain’t nothing gonna change, not now, not soon, not ever. On the news, they show images of those still missing, and with each hour that passes, they move a step closer to being confirmed dead. So many children. So many smiling faces that got snuffed out in the blink of an eye while most of us were sleeping. While we were dancing in clouds of dreams, they were burning, and now they are bones as we are ghosts. These June nights are bright so late. They speak to me through the window as I try and write. Memories. Shadows. Lights that wave hello from so far away. There are fields, so many fields. There are pathways that turn into alleyways that cut through graveyards where crows dance among the blades of grass that grow as long as these lazy evenings. There are scents that tickle my nose that are reminiscent of your smile and how it would often spread from dimple to dimple at the sight of a simple wonder. When they zoom in on Grenfell Tower, I keep picturing all the bodies waiting to be discovered within the empty husk of what it now is. The news reporters look so serious and intense, and the ties they wear so sharp and solemn. They speak quietly with remorse, but it’s just a job, and this time next week they’ll be stressing the importance of something else, and so the vertical catacomb will become just another story. Just another page in the book we keep writing of which they’ll be no end.
Author S. K. Nicholas 
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