A noise intruded. My dreams tried to assimilate it among their troubles, but it remained stubbornly separate. I could not say how long it had been there, but it woke me eventually. A sharp crack, followed by lesser sounds. A ricochet, but not a shot.

It came again, and I realised something had been thrown into the room, clean through the open window. It rattled around on the floor and I saw it come to rest in the shadows: a stone, half the size of a hen’s egg.

It took so long—too long—for my mind to catch up.

Another stone came through and bounced on the floor, a little harder than the previous one.

My father’s lips were pale, slightly parted.

Then another stone. This one struck the lamp cleanly, shattering the glass. Tiny shards struck my cheek. Blue flames glowed warm beside me and I still did not understand. The oil had spilt and the flame was following it, down the side of the table and onto the floor at lightning speed, onto the trailing edge of the bedclothes and up and over my father’s body.

I shrieked, ripped the furs down and grabbed him around his middle, heaved him up and out of the bed. The body was slack: there was no resistance to this violent change of circumstance. Even as wasted as he had become, his frame was too heavy for me and I crashed to the floor amid the licking flames. The oil got on me, I felt it slick under my forearm, and there followed a searing pain as the flames devoured the oil and sizzled my skin. I got to my feet, slipped once and landed on my burnt arms. Some of the skin stuck to the boards—I saw it pull away from my flesh as I pushed up from the dry floor. I screamed and hauled my father’s body by the shirt towards the door.

People were rushing in; the room was bright with flame but filling with thick smoke. The fire had the curtains, it had the furniture. The bed was roaring: flames that billowed luxuriantly, that had leisure and sustenance. The smoke was too much, but then there were arms on me and the shirt was gone from between my fingers and a tangle of us fell out the door and into the living room, where the flames were eager to follow.

People everywhere, shouting, coughing, beating at the flames. Perhaps the situation could have been turned in those first few moments, but the fire was greedy in its confidence. It had found too many avenues to fuel. The door to the room where we’d been only seconds before was an inferno, too bright and hot to look at.