So Lovely — and So Dead

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There was no light showing through the crack under the door, and no one answered my knocking. Under the pressure of my hand, the door whispered inward into darkness. Through the slats of a Venetian blind, the light of a street lamp outside fell through to make the pattern of a trellis on the floor. Pushing the door shut behind me, I groped in darkness for an elusive light switch that didn’t seem to be where I remembered it.

Through the pattern of the trellis, a shadow moved toward me with a rush. The arm that I threw up in protection was knocked aside by a blow that caught me on the side of the head and sent me crashing into the wall. On buckling knees, I tried to slip sideways and away, but a hand, brushing my face, grasped me deliberately, almost gently, by the coat and pulled me back into heavy knuckles that smashed my mouth and sent me spinning into a sick world of nauseous, flaring colors.

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