THE SOUND OF BREAKING GLASS

He was the most beautiful child in the world when he slept. The tension flowed out of his little frame like rain out of a cloud, first softly, little by little, then building up to the great rush which left his body curled motionless. He went from pent-up ball of sinew to a limp, calm clay figure. His usual skin colour, which most would have described as dirty brown, took on a warm chocolatey aspect. His limbs, which usually looked nothing more than emaciated, began to look less stick-like. His mobile face relaxed into an expression of peaceful serenity. Here, wrapped in faded old T-shirt rags, lay the most beautiful child in the world.

But then the nightmares would begin. At first nothing more discernible than a change of expression. Then slight movements. Murmurings. Eventually he began to thrash about, to shout out. Then, in one frightened movement, like a fox hearing a gunshot, he would start awake, panting and drenched with sweat.

I never could coax from him the contents of his dreams. Nor could I convince him that they weren't real. For a five year old he was remarkably stubborn about what was and what was not real. At his absolute certainty that what he saw was happening, I had to conclude that it had happened before. This boy did not dream of monsters under the bed, or men in the moon. He had experienced the horror that drove him from sleep and neither I nor anyone else could convince him that he was not still experiencing it.

He was ten before the night terrors began. The first few occasions went unnoticed : everyone simply thought that the windows were smashing in the wind. Then one morning he was found in a pool of blood next to a broken window. On waking, he knew nothing of the night's events and querulously demanded to know what had happened. We did not have the heart to tell him the truth.

Those of us who had lied to him about that first incident never shook the feeling of guilt. Somehow we knew that he knew the truth. Two years later we found him dead in one of the home's baths. He had smashed a mirror and slit his wrists with the shards. In his own blood he had inscribed on the wall : It was the sound of breaking glass.

He was the most beautiful child in the world when he slept.