The high beams of the roof started to fall. She pulled the child and his mother into a corner of the chancel. She was coughing and crying. Wood cracked against the cement floor next to her. She shuddered over the cowering mother and child.

Light burst into the shape of an enormous, layered marigold. Like the fireworks on New Year’s Eve in Colombo. She looked up and saw raindrops of fire fall from the sky. Droplets burrowed through the clothes and skin of people it touched. They ran, screaming, trying to tear the fire out of their bodies, but it burrowed deeper still.

From the fire came streamers of white smoke. The streamers found each other and entwined to create a cloud of the purest white she’d ever seen. The cloud rose and rose. Around her, people screamed. The mother pushed her away, clutched her child and ran into the cloud.

‘No!’ Dhara cried, but it was too late. More fire dripped from the sky. It was seeking the church. The sanctuary wall broke. Suddenly there were others around her. They pushed against the broken stone of the walls and the splintered beams of the roof. They dug to find whoever remained and carried them out into the madness. She held a child. She didn’t know whose. He closed his eyes against her chest. She was making a noise she didn’t recognise. She wanted to soothe him but she couldn’t form words, just the wheezing that spurted from her throat.

She crushed the child against her with one arm, and with her free hand she grabbed a young girl who was standing, dazed and unmoving. Dhara pulled her hard. She wheezed again, the sound becoming more guttural. She held and she pulled and she wheezed and she ran and ran and ran into the jungle.

•

‘We’re leaving now,’ Suren said to her, pulling the tarpaulin off the jeep. He laid it on the ground and pulled out the scissors from his pack. He cut it into four pieces and gave one to each of the children hovering around him.

‘Wait,’ he shouted, as they darted away. ‘Maram kucci,’ he yelled in stilted Tamil. ‘Moondu maram kucci,’ he held up three fingers. ‘You need three sticks.’ He pointed to the mighty palmyra trees, lying broken around them, but the children had already run off with their treasure. Children learned not to stand still in open places. Three sticks and a bit of tarpaulin: it had proven to be the more effective shelter against the scorching sun. It could be grabbed when the army shelling started again or when the Tigers ordered them to march, herding them with their guns. He found that people were dying trying to grab the complicated UN tents they were given.