CHAPTER 16

I didn't know how long I'd been laying on the staircase.

Maybe a lifetime. Maybe just a few moments.

I remembered getting in the cab, but not the journey home. I remembered fumbling with the key in the lock and walking into the house, although walking was a stretch of the truth to be fair. Shuffling would have been more apt. I'd gotten as far as the staircase and collapsed, half-twisted on my back, staring up at the ceiling. There was a cobweb right above my head, a thin wispy strand that danced on the breeze blowing through the still-open doorway.

I couldn't move. I wanted to, I think I wanted to, I knew I probably should have moved. The front door was open, after all. The keys were still in the lock. But I'd been falling since I'd reached home, falling as I lay on my back staring upwards at the cobweb, falling even though I wasn't falling at all. I was dimly aware that my leg was bent at an angle that was uncomfortable and that there was a dull pain building in the base o