Purple heart with black tribal flames

The heart went up over the Mesa Diner on Tuesday, and I have not slept properly since. Hollis wanted red, the way every sign on Route 9 is red, but Mrs Okafor stood in the dust with a jar of paint chips and said red looked like a warning. So we bent the tubing into a heart, then a ring of flames around it, the tongues cut sharp as hacksaw blades, and filled the glass with a violet gas nobody on the crew had heard of.

The first night it lit, a lorry driver pulled in for coffee and sat in the car park for an hour without going inside. He told the waitress the flames looked like they were still moving when the power was off. She laughed at him. I did not laugh, because I had checked the wiring three times that afternoon and I knew the sign was dark.

Mrs Okafor asked me to stay on and fix the buzz in the left-hand flame. I said I would come back Friday. Instead I sat on the tailgate with a tin mug of tea and watched the heart glow against the black hills, its rim a grey shadow, like a bruise going down. Nothing about it was loud. It just kept its shape while the wind ran over the road and the cacti stood about in the dark like people waiting for a bus.

Come out at Easter. The bus stops at the crossroads now, so you can walk the last mile and see it for yourself. Bring a jumper, the nights are cold even when the days are not.

Your brother, Tom