The hostage sky

The days spent staring at the sky: in daylight and at night, winter through to autumn, outdoors and from the window, on foot, at the wheel, starry, starless, a half-formed prayer on his lips that he dares not speak.

When he first arrived, he was transfixed by the sky. The expanse of the sky in his surroundings, the strips of white, the explosive sunsets he wished to commit to memory. It is the same sky, the one that has held them hostage for months, the sky that does not care whether he breathes or dies.