He leans forward. It's the natural, most reflexive response—beating out any sound of dismay or snatching grasp after the chair's arms. The crack of the chair back impacting with the floor is loud, and in his ear there is a sharper more nauseating snap that has nothing to do with the clatter of the borrowed cane as it skitters away across the floor in imitation of a live snake until it finds some rug or furniture edge.

With a sharp cry, Ralston spills after it in apoplectic disarray.

He writhes there tangled in the geometry of the upended chair. Recoils from the ravenous pain that snarls through his shoulder, the heat of it so shocking and the change or altitude so shocking that he doesn't immediately realize why his face is wet or how exactly he might have contrived to strike it. And then he tastes the metal and it's incredible, isn't it? How freely a broken nose bleeds, hot and copper into his fingers and onto his clothes and the floor.