Green flames engulfed the house by night. By dawn, it was returned to as it was. Not a singe on it. At least, so we thought. It was an echo, a reflection of the past, its walls and windows as mutable as a dream, able to hold back rain so long as you believed they would. It wasn’t real, it wasn’t there, unless you wanted it to be. And we did. We couldn’t surrender that place to memory. So we lived under a false roof, gazing up into real stars.
Paddy Dobson
27th October 2023