'O' was an injured, young owl I found while walking in the grounds of an old psychiatric hospital. It was an impossible circumstance: whether to leave it suffering or to take it to a veterinarian (and certain death.) It made gentle clicking noises as I held it up, ‘for one last look,’ towards the sky and the tree tops. I could feel its rhythmic heart beat . . . its big brown eyes, pained but alive and alert.

I returned weeks later to the exact spot . . . the trees and the sky unchanged, bringing with me an urn, scissors, lighter and family photos. I cut my hair (a symbol of self) and put it in the flames of the urn, incinerated like the owl. I set fire to the photographs (the metaphorical memory) burning self with the memory of the past and vice versa, watching as my hair and the photographs melted together and were consumed to blackness.

‘The Image [mental] is lost forever . . . it’s just a memory.’