The Artist by Jeanette Sheppard

She’d spent all day painting the front door: his arms and legs were easily captured, clear in her mind. Household emulsion was the only paint to hand; she swirled herself as a foetal curl in his wide embrace, a self-made Cerulean Blue.  

When they’d met they had laughed together at her paintings and she’d given up, sold her brushes and oils online for £5.

Now the paint was dry she struck a match; blue paint spat from the yellow jaggers. The flames caught his feet, swept along his gripping thighs, moved up  his belly, his arms, his legs, his chest and finally his face. She was burning too. As their embrace darkened she imagined ways to draw a phoenix with the charcoal.