Skull of roses and daisies with galaxy fill on thigh

The lift has been out again since Tuesday, so I walk the nineteen floors with the shopping and count the landings like you used to count lamp-posts on the way to school. Mrs Adeyemi on eleven has taken over the communal planters since the council cut the grass, and she has filled them with daisies and two stubborn roses that the wind keeps trying to snap. I told her they looked like a funeral wreath. She told me to mind my own window box.

Here is the news. Last night the power went off across the whole block at half ten, and everyone came out onto the walkways with torches and phones. You could see right over the car park to the motorway and the orange smudge of the estate. Then somebody on fourteen said the sky was clearer than it had ever been, and it was. The stars came out thick as spilt salt. I stood at the rail with my cold tea and thought of Dad saying the dead went up there and got their own lights.

I am not writing to be morbid. I am writing because I finally did the thing you dared me to. I took the money from the tin and went to the shop on Market Street, and the woman there drew me a skull out of flowers on a sheet of tracing paper, with a butterfly up in the corner for luck. She said she could fill the eye sockets with night. I said yes before I could argue.

Come home at Christmas. Bring the good biscuits, and come up the stairs with me so you can see it properly.

Love, Nadia