In that unbearable dizziness, in that mute vision of horror that no longer even screamed, I fell. Literally. There was no resistance, no jolt of will, no delay.
My body gave out all at once, like a hollow thing that had been held upright for too long out of pride. My knees hit the nacre with a dull, flat, almost obscene sound. A crack in the joint, something giving way, collapsing, with no promise of return.
My thighs trembled, my arms buckled under the weight. Not just the child's, but everything's. The world's. The past's. What I had fled. What I had just found again in that frozen gaze.
My torso folded in two, as if split from the inside, emptied of axis, of bone, of meaning. And my forehead, finally, struck the steps. Brutally. Without hands to cushion it, without restraint, like an offering made to the stone.
