Tribal dragon design with spiral patterns

Flat 14 is finally quiet, so I can tell you about the wall. Mr Okafor from the ground floor paid a man called Ruben to put a dragon on the stairwell at Dunmore House, the one by the bins where the lights always fail. Ruben worked for three nights with a tin of black gloss, a jar of white paint and a brush no thicker than a pencil. He never sketched it first. He started at the bottom with the tail and let it curl up the concrete like smoke that had decided to become an animal.

By the second night the whole block knew. Mrs Pryce from twelve brought down a flask of tea and stood in the stairwell for an hour saying nothing. The lads who usually spray their names on the lift doors left it alone. Ruben's spirals ran through the body in lines so fine you had to lean in close, and each wing carried a row of white dots, one for every flat that had signed the petition to keep the bins where they were.

On the third night the council van pulled up. I watched from the window with my tea going cold. Ruben didn't argue. He painted the last dot on the left wing, climbed down, and slid the brush into his back pocket. The next morning the caretaker stood looking up at the dragon for a long time, then went off to find his ladder, and I still don't know whether he meant to paint over it.

Come home at Christmas and go up the stairs to count the dots. There are forty-one, and one of them is yours.

Love, Nan