In the final moments of his life, it was her face that filled his mind. Images spun round and round, of the light catching her pale hair, her head thrown back so that her long neck was exposed, eyes slitted with heady pleasure. Everything about her was radiance and beatific grace, as though she was not solid at all but a heavenly conceit, a constellation of stardust fallen from the skies into one deft, perfect form . . .
In seeing all this, there was much that he missed – the early autumn puddle glinting darkly, deeply; the low, discernible electric burr of the tram behind; the singular scream that pitched into the air and tore through the city’s sky. He knew none of it.
For him there was only light.
And then darkness.