Girls Fall Down Read Online Free Page A

brutalist concrete shoulders of the massive building, blurred by the tall lights and the faint haze of snow. The wind whipped his scarf across his face as he walked up the broad curve of the stairway. He pushed open the glass door and went into the library’s forced-air warmth. He was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to take pictures here, but he usually managed a few, inconspicuously. A row of students awkwardly curled up asleep in the chairs; an elderly man in rubber boots, puddles around his feet, reading one magazine after another.
    He left the library and kept walking, east past the darkness in Queen’s Park, statues and whispering men among the trees, then the cheap bright flare of Yonge Street, ADULT DANCERS and VIdEOS HAfL-PRiC, the neon signs reflecting in nearby windows like flame.
    The white figures rose up from the station, the air judged innocent, uncontaminated, to the extent that the instruments could detect.
    This is the nature of safety in the measured world – you can be certain of the presence of danger, but you can never guarantee its absence. No measurement quite trusts itself down to zero, down to absolute lack. All that the dials and lights and delicate reactions can tell you is that the instruments recognize no peril. You can be reassured by this, or not, as you choose.
    It was later on that night, and Alex had come home, packed away his film and lenses. He was in the kitchen reaching for a jar of peanut butter, not thinking about anything in particular, when he caught himself blinking.
    There was something in his field of vision.
    He blinked again, and it didn’t go away. He shook his head quickly, knowing this was useless. No change. Tiny black spots, just two or three. Up a bit and to the right. He closed his right eye, leaning against the counter. Standing in the empty kitchen, listening to the sound of his heart.

II
    In the hour before dawn, the city is private and surprisingly cheerful, optimistic; hopeful, in the dark, of the coming day, the sunrise a slow dilution of shadow, a grey wash over the sky, tinged gently with pink.
    On the Danforth, a handful of people sat in a coffee shop drinking espresso. A man and a woman, who met here every morning before work; he was bearded and aging, she was younger, black-haired, round-faced. Another woman in a second-hand army parka, reading a newspaper. A policeman buying muffins to take away. These were the ones who rose early and ventured out with the wind, at the coldest time on the clock.
    Across the river, among the towers of St. Jamestown, a Somali girl tightened her head scarf, zipped up her red jacket and set out on her bike to deliver newspapers, and on the street an Iranian man who had once been a doctor cleaned vomit from the back seat of his taxi. A woman put a pan of milk on the burner of her stove, and stared at the creamy ripples on the surface.
    The subway began to run, the first train on each line half-empty, the second and third filling up as the rush hour gathered mass and density. Underground bakeries drew fresh pastries out of metal ovens, the sweet hot smell of dough and yeast touching the platforms.
    Alex left for work early. He had barely slept anyway. The floaters in his right eye were a shock, maybe more of a shock than they should have been, and he was far too anxious, too wound up to sleep, only skimming and plunging for a few hours through tangled twilight dreams. It was a relief to be outside, to drink hot tea with milk and sugar from his plastic travel mug as he rode the College streetcar, the world solidifying around him. On the northbound subway, a tall and muscular Buddhist monk, with orange robes and a shining round head, was fingering a circlet of wooden beads, a tiny secret smile playing over his lips, as he listened to three girls across the aisle from himhaving a nearly unintelligible giggling conversation on the general theme of chocolate cake.
    Alex arrived at the hospital during the hollow quiet