Wednesday, 2 December 2015
6:56 A.M.
The frozen river creaked and snapped as if shifting in its sleep beneath the sparkling metropolis. Various vessels, ice-trapped and forgotten, drowned gradually in the snow as the mainland was temporarily reunited with the island city.
As sunrise crept over the cluttered horizon, and the bridge basked in the orange light, it cast a stark shadow across the ice below: between the imposing archway, a framework of wires crisscrossed in the powder, a web of threads that had caught something overnight.
Tangled up and bent out of shape where it hung, like a fly that had torn itself apart in its desperation to break free, William Fawkes’s broken body eclipsed the sun.