. Light hits my retina through the prism of a tear, distorted faces pass with images fragmented inside out and the smell of tallow as a candle splutters, falters and winks out for the wick collapses cruel like a hamstrung dancer. The tear exits stage left and rolls down the wings of a thoughtless cheek, teeters on the brink of catastrophe and falls upon a blank page, reviewing its brief life as a lazy metaphor, so I look at the remaining solitary candle and grieve for the lost tear, as an understudy takes its place.