The world is still, on the edge of tears, even as it continues, as it must, to turn night to day and business to money and traffic to weariness. The leaves tremble at an unseen adjustment of air pressure; an atmosphere of tears, held back for now, are felt as a prickling of the hairs on the back of your hand.

Outside the cathedral, a rainbow flag drips colour across the sidewalk, while the buses shiver and hiss at the traffic lights: Stop. Go. Wait …

Inside, the air is quiet, but it is not at peace. Grief, anger, the memory of all that it took to build stone upon stone, the dust and ashes of lives spent in hope unrealized; hope trembles still on the humidity rising, shed and unshed tears evaporating, clouding, condensing upon the stone cold throne of God,

while on the street the exhausted heat breathes a weary defiance of death, the throb and pulse and ache of life.