Fear, panic and rancour drew in close about her and she felt as if she were being drawn down to her knees upon the floor, her mind sealed and her heart wrought open. Faint and fleshy footsteps echoed in approach and she dared herself to look upon them, to face down this frenzy and snap at its strands. Closer the steps sounded and she saw a shadow that reached to a tip in front of her. Then silence.
Coiled into her own embrace, she felt a soundless bolt of lightning strike into her heart and release a bubble of memory that rose passively until it reached her mind and was the buoyant thought on her shore: it was of a photograph that she had taken of her parents in their kitchen. She had snuck in upon them and yelled, snapping their reactions. She was ten years old when she took the photogra
