Arpeggio

His white ankles blurred as their soles slapped against the checkered tiles. He ran, frenzied, down the hall, past tall windows and the fading sun, shaded orange in late October. He scurried faster through the sunbeams, almost recoiling, his pale toes pushing more desperately against the floor below. Above, the high ceilings still held shadows dancing, and he danced with them, twisting back, staggering his mad flight from side to side and onwards, then, heel cracking against the floor, his right leg slid out, leaving his left still bent in mid-stride, and, dragging it uselessly behind, he fell.
He was shrunken; a miniature figurine. The foundations shook, groaning as if the entire building were being dislodged. Suddenly, one of the windows went black, then another, and more, alternating in some opaque pattern.
Melody in air hot rushing moist air enveloping. Crashing window lights, shaking, blinking. Heavy breath jostling through the hall. Crowded metro. Musical notes. Each pushing, elbowing, breathing, singing, skipping, their high-heels grinding spines I lie here, helpless.
Clawing the floor, scraping against poor footholds, he held his place against the wind. His senses drowned: air, music, light, darkness, and a crashing strobe thundering each change, flashes booming in his eyes, blood pounding in his ears, and his windpipe thickened; shaking, tense, convulsing &- his blue robe held on by one loose thread.
Flute. I, a fleeting sound. A beauty existing only in time, one amongst others. I, sour misfit note, discarded. The doctor. The judge. Forgotten here on this cold checkered tile. The light! Strange. Warm. I feared it after the treatments. They held me down under it. Different here, yellow, or almost orange. Stale white in that room, fear of it in my eyes. There! Trees outside &- branches stretching past the window. Last golden leaves of fall. Some latticework, silhouetted. Patterns, like music.
He lay still, his head supported by the floor. His mouth hung drooping to the side. His cheeks glimmered, wet, and his eyelids struggled, pupils trained upon the window, reflected in his eye. It was difficult to think. The episode shook him, and his knees ached around a sharp pain. The adrenaline was wearing off.
A tickling of fingertips… faint numbness hammering flute-notes. Burned a rhythm on long arm-nerves. Different time from the heart. Alternating syncopations. Not together though. At odds. Tired eyelids, lulled by the forgotten sun, and knee ache, aching. As a boy I fell, running so fast, with the cold wind stroking my hair. Injury never lasted in childhood, she always made it better. A sun like this, warmer even, shining through green bushels, thick clumps dressing limbs stretching towards warm showers and blustering clouds, spinning in the blue. Numbness in arms, thighs. A beating heart flashing sunbursts behind black eyes, the checkered floor pattern &- unravelling in a languid blur… new rhythm, steady, measured. Feel of vibrations marching in time. Hard soles against the tile…
A chipped and bleeding toe adorned his swollen ankle, red and white, as it slid away along the floor through sunbeams and shadows, alternating. Blue veins stretched along it, pointing to the place where he had fallen. His body hung limp, dragged by white coats fluttering like ragged wings.