Lotus with seven chakra symbols

The lamps were the old lamplighter's idea, though nobody remembers his name. Seven glass shades run up the parapet in a line, each cut in a different colour: green at the rail's end, then yellow, orange, red, teal, indigo and violet at the top where the bridge meets the sky. Half of them cracked over the last winter. You unscrew the dead bulb in the green one and feel for the new one with cold fingers, counting the others in your head the way you learned to count stitches as a child.

When the teal lamp takes, something moves under the water. A pale lily has opened on the surface where there was only oil and rubbish a minute ago, its petals layered like folded paper, its centre a fierce purple that seems to drink the light. You stand very still. A bus hisses past behind you. Below, the lily goes on opening, and the reflection of the seven lamps climbs down through its petals, each colour finding its own ring until the whole flower is lit from the bottom up.

You switch on the violet lamp last. The bridge is quiet except for the water. Somewhere a bottle rolls down a slope, and you think, absurdly, that the lamplighter would have wanted someone to see this, so you stay where you are until the bulbs hum and the flower folds itself shut for the night.