Inching closer to the heater, the winding roads in her mind became streaks of fire in the sky, like those left behind by sparklers waved around on Bonfire Night or the fireworks that accompanied them, cutting through the heavens like a knife. Closer and closer still, the heat washed over her in waves—like the waves against the window—howling like stray dogs begging for shelter from the pouring rain. Resting the cookie in her lap, she thought about those stars and how if one of them were to explode, the heat would be as hot as lava spewing from volcanoes in exotic places she had never been and probably never would. With the heat caressing her face, her fingers dug into the cookie, causing it to crumble into pieces, but she was too intoxicated by the glowing light to even care. The room around her dissolved and all that she knew was the din of the rain and the embrace of the two glowing logs as they whispered for her to come closer. The closer she came, the more she felt at one with the stars in the sky that flickered like the eyes of the dogs outside as they slinked around the trashcans in search of fishbones and chicken bones and all kinds of bones to gnaw as the streets around them sunk into oblivion.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US