God knows, save my soul from the sword.
It goes on, this winding stair. Every tread is new, and already trodden. How many times will I imagine the end...? How much better, to make a life, and be within it. I see myself, what, cutting wood..? Fashioning what, some object..? To imagine yourself, that life.  But this is all it will ever be, we know it. The rain of our imagining always breaks upon every step. That's something, then. Knowing it, something.
So it goes. Well I can report the facts, can do that.
There's Gareth, down the hallway. Was he ever anywhere else? There's Helen. Actually, where is Helen? She has clients round the clock.
It's all the same, then, all the fucking same then. But is it, really?
Ah.

How many times will I tread this winding stair..? We have all been dead a long while. Have you any idea of the sheer effort to climb these heights simply to say hello, again? To you, again? I will scale higher and higher to the tune of your indifference, it's known. But no birds sing in this house. Oh sure, it's true, we live in different worlds now. But there was a time our worlds met. Wasn't there, Mum..? Mum? Fucking hell.

I struck myself on the side of the face with the base of my hand, kicked open the door. Everything was here, intact. I slumped into the client chair. Agrippa, Paracelsus, Fludd, my Ouspenski. It was all here, everything. What was I thinking. I hit myself again, the other cheek, breathing deeply, until I heard the soft thud of Gareth's car door. Another day, with relief.