I’ve been collecting bricks for years, but only recently have I started accumulating them. A slightly different prospect. Tens, maybe twenties over a lifetime, mostly propping up books, or used as shelving struts. Right now I have three and a half of the four most recent ones. This odd one is the second-most recent one, found in Paris after a long search that went down to the last minute before leaving, and I have it on video, the finding.

There it sat on the radiator in Harlsden for about ten days, post-disinfection, wrapped in its red paper napkin. That softness around something so hard. Through the x-ray at the border it came. Then at home, ordinary-ish, until Easter Sunday when I went to Neasden temple with close friends.

I didn’t know why we were going, not really. Ms B was there, walking us through the motifs, the architectural technology, and I was chomping at the bit to ask her about the piles of bricks stacked on pallets in the entrance hall, ornate space, bricks everywhere.

She explained: Paris will usurp London as host to the biggest temple outside India. So in London they’re building a forty-foot statue, and these bricks are the foundation. She asked if I’d come back Monday, bring my Paris brick? There’s a ceremony! Of course I said yes. Then: do you have your ticket? Tickets sold out months ago…

I arrived Monday after a busy morning, not expecting to be let in. Ready to stand outside the fence, soak up the blessings from the perimeter. But security recognised me before I could ask.

“You’re the guy with the Paris brick.”

It seems Ms B had spread the word. She wasn’t there that day or at least I didn’t see her. But I was moved through the temple side entrance, back to the front of the queue, then to a table prepared with everything laid out.

Vessels. Leaves. Rice. Twine. A space for the brick, a chair for Binky beside me and a thirsty spider on the table to watch over us.

Binky carried me through it all. We tied bracelets around each other’s wrists, red and yellow thread, and it was in that moment that I realised this was the last time I would see this ‘my’ Paris brick.

Not loss. Consecration. I wrote my name on it thanks to the fineliner a boy lent me. I left it with the others, and the brick went into the foundation of something forty feet tall, something being built, something that will stand in London.

I’d carried it across borders to give it away.

Only one of my clients wasn’t very interested in this story. I think all my colleagues are bored of it!