It is night.

Mark is alone.

Around him, the grass is silver, trees like shattered glass. From the hilltop, London beneath the moon spreads out like a painted backdrop, lights shimmering.

His bank account is empty now.

He remembers his partner, face in rictus as the big wheel stomach dropped them back toward Earth, her face beautiful as she opened the jeweller’s box.

To each friend a gift. Smiling, he thinks of the laptop that will arrive at his Dad’s house and remain forever unopened, of his cat at home full and sleepy, his workmates arriving to an office filled with orchids and tiny songbirds, his mother’s ring placed in a Jiffy bag and posted to his first girlfriend.

He hears his sister squeal as she unlocks the storage room filled floor to ceiling with childhood comics thought long lost.

It will end tonight, he thinks.

Carefully, with quiet respect and kindness, he brings his story to a stop, exhausted.

After so much effort, the release is like breathing for the first time.

Stripping his clothes, he stands naked before the city, a pale thing ready to be transfigured.

A fox watches, shadow like a sundial.

Mark closes his eyes.

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