The way a cheap door warps – as a pink room fills with thick black smoke – and the ripples in the wood look like the sea, like the sea on a violent, volatile night. The way that a smooth face bleeds in a way so different from a weathered, split knee. How a mangy stray cat, when called upon for action, can be as loyal as any dog. How, when your house has been set alight, you really do abandon everything – arrow-swift, nightmare-shook, carrying less than nothing in your blackening hands.
