One day, as Thomas was getting up, he stepped out of bed, and his foot fell off.
He stared down in horror at the perfectly smooth, almost ivory-like space at the bottom of his ankle. With considerate symmetry, his former appendage had parted cleanly from his body. Thomas could at least be thankful for that.
The foot had fallen flat on top of the deep shag rug surrounding the bed, with all the seeming weight that his body had usually put behind it. When he was walking. When he’d used it to walk with.
Thomas’s brain started doing backflips: this would take some getting used to.
‘Is this shock?’ Thomas thought, trying to balance but eventually falling back onto the edge of the bed. ‘Am I in shock?’
He grabbed a pillow and held it to his face, burying his nose in its marshmallowy comfort. Continue reading