Summary: The Manchester night air is sharp with ice. The streets are quiet, sounds muffled by the recent falling of snow. Frost gilds every surface with diagrams of ferns. Two miles out of the centre, at the Church of The Ascension, one person at least is outside. A figure stands at the tall iron railings: a man, staring through as if at some zoo animal. The church is abandoned, marooned by the roads flowing around it. The man waits for the cars on the glassy roads to pass by. He is old. His unkempt beard spills over the buttoned top of his greatcoat. His clothes are tatty but he has well-made boots on his feet.
