Suddenly, without warning, the lights in town went out. Sometime in the early hours it was, but not so early that everyone was asleep. It was Saturday, but technically Sunday. The shady bit between where shady shit happens. The kind that makes you grit your teeth and snarl at the moon in a heady, fleshy rage. There were candles in all the windows. People stood on their doorsteps catching some light from the rock in the sky as if the nowhereness of the hour had turned them into pagans. The smoke from their cigarettes swirled up, up and away, like dragons seeking safe passage to some heavenly romance, the kind you get in books but not real life because, in real life, people don’t want romance; they want progress, and progress is only ever a comfortable disease. At least that’s what I’ve been told. A candle set alight to some curtains in some apartment on the corner. When the emergency services came to the rescue, their flashing lights lit the place up like a Christmas tree. I wish it were still Christmas; I really do. I wish I were covered in dog hair and doggy licks and that the togetherness you find in winter existed in summer, but it never does. In the darkness, the small glimmers of light are so pretty, which is why we wrap our arms around them, wishing so keenly to be taken to safety. The hours seemed to hang around indefinitely. They surrounded our limbs like quicksand, but then in the blink of an eye, daylight shone through the blinds turning drunken kisses into a pained embrace only a hangover knows.

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