Blue light diffuses across her skin, trickling in through the windows, making shadows of the drops that run down the pane. The tap of rain on sheet metal. The echoes of distant sirens and the muffled rumble of passing cars. Below the window, nothing but leagues of cold empty air. Around us are thousands of sleepers locked away behind their doors and walls, tucked into beds or on couches below blankets. Hardly a soul awake. The taxi man yawns and draws his shift to a close. A rat sniffs the air before closing his eyes again. Someone’s eyes flutter against the blaring white of a screen. Warm bodies cradle against a cold world.
Paddy Dobson
23rd April 2021