‘Don’t worry about it, yeah? I’ll get it sorted. I know they said but there’s got to be a way. I’ll see about it in the morning and let you know when I do. I know. Well, at least you and Dad are OK. That’s the main thing.’

He blanks out when she talks about the banal realities of her life, only to realise and snap out of it. What’s he doing? What was he just telling himself? He nods, shuffles his mouse, picks at his jeans.

‘Bye Mum,’ he says when she trails off. ‘I’ll call soon, OK? Love you.’

He doesn’t wait for her reply and cuts off the line. Lightning brightens the room. This time, he won’t look.

They’re out there for the rest of the night. Radios playing bland pop, pounding tools that echo across the bare expanse of moist, sodden earth. The tinkle of fallen nails and grunts of heavy goods vehicles over a random whirr of drills. The searing noise of a cutting machine makes Geoff start, half rise. He’d dreamt of a circular saw, a fountain of sparks, some tough material or another shorn away, bending like paper. He sits up, drinks his bedside water and stares at drawn curtains. He can ignore the bastards but they won’t go away.

Morning brings relative quiet. Geoff eats granola to a background noise of occasional hammer blows and various mechanical devices, although he also hears birds and the roar of planes. He spoons cereal, chewing thoughtless mouthfuls, pushes the bowl away and stands. He grabs his keys, his ID and leaves the flat. The door slams behind him, shuddering in its frame.

The stairs are dark, the grey walls cold. Faded graffiti is smeared in bleached patches all the way down. He pushes the icy steel bar out of his block and into the bright of day. Altostratus clouds veil the sky. The sun’s dull, as if hidden behind ground glass. Geoff pushes his hands into the pockets of his denim jacket, hurrying along the black gravel path, slipping on the odd mud patch. It’s cold and he’s hunched against a growing breeze. The pop music’s louder, irritating. He turns the corner.

Egg-speckled columns, somewhat like motorway struts, are placed in a single-file line, spaced maybe four hundred metres apart, it’s difficult to tell. They stand high, towering over the building that contains his one-room flat by at least another half block, perhaps. Geoff understands last night’s need for loud machinery even as he marvels at how this was done. The columns hike across the shattered remains of the worn town, far into the greying distance. Between each T-shaped strut there’s an odd, shimmering trick of the light that reminds him of childhood, the translucent film of bubbles he blew as a boy.