The Beauty In The Burning

Seeing a smashed up phone box or scratched bus shelter is common in London. We usually pass this kind of destruction without a second glance. Last week I was in Tottenham (North London) and saw this burnt billboard. Looking through the hole that had been creatived at the bottom of the billboard, I could see what could have been a old house or simply dead space. I took a picture before rushing off to meet some friends. How would I make this into an interesting blog post, I thought. But as I sent the picture to my laptop and saw it on a larger screen, I noticed the white and red DO NOT CROSS sign, the different shades of grey and black left in patterns on the wood, the perfectly straight lines of paint left as the heat stripped most of it away. Did the people who decided to light the match that started the flame imagine the symmetrical and beautiful the result would be when the burning stopped?