The veined, burnt-orange leaf lay frozen beneath it'd cobweb of ice, like an elegy to the dead autumn. At the clamour of the church bells, Sebastian stood from where he crouched on the path, and walked on. The windless winter air held him like a pebble in a child's hand. His fingers found solace in the deep pockets of his trench coat, as his tall frame bounded from its abandoned rings of steamed breath. Every fibre in his body seemed to radiate “alive, alive, I am alive”, and it occurred to him that he could not remember being this aware of his own hot, breathing existence. Was this the morning of the whole of his life?

He hesitantly followed his mind as it wandered towards that very morning, almost afraid to touch the memories, as one dreads moving the furniture in the old room of a person one loved. Slowly, he entered the yellow memory of his bright kitchen, and he could almost hear the high, solemn voice of the little boy at the table, asking whether he had any jam for his porridge. This was Sebastian's son, a living breathing, six year old piece of himself, who had remained unknown until that day. Perhaps he had felt his presence, the way that one is suddenly overcome by a painful longing at the arch of a rainbow seen through a window pane.

The day that Dina had left he made a promise to himself to watch over his emotions, to guard and to hold onto them tightly. And when there was a small boy, his boy, appearing to him like a promise to be free….