Floating Staircase Read Online Free PDF

took a step forward, and that was when my foot broke through the ice.
    My breath seized, and I heard my foot splash into the water. Instantly, my leg, straight up to mid-thigh, went numb. And I went forward and down, unable to prevent the fall. My heart lurched. Instinct thrust my hands out, and I managed to catch the side of the protruding staircase, preventing myself from falling farther through the ice. Holding on to the side of the staircase, I caught my breath before extricating my soaked, anesthetized leg from the lake and hoisted myself up and on my feet.
    The cold night air immediately froze the water on my leg, the flimsy material of my pajama pants clinging to me like a second skin. A freezing burn traced up my thigh toward my groin, and once again my testicles performed their disappearing act. My whole body trembled.
    Stupidly, I lost my balance and fell in an arc down onto my left side. I hit hard, rattling the teeth in my head. I heard something crack; I couldn’t tell if it was the ice beneath my weight or the bones within my flesh. The nub of my cigarette went flying, and I watched the ember cartwheel through the air in slow motion. I felt ice water seep against my ribs, my arm. Like a dream, the ground shifted beneath me: the ice had cracked and was breaking apart.
    I uttered a train wreck of curses and quickly rolled onto my back, retreating from the widening fault in the ice. Even as I rolled, I heard the ice splitting; the sound was like the crackling of a fire.
    I continued to roll away from the breaking ice until some internal sense told me I could stop. So I stopped. My eyes were closed, though I couldn’t remember closing them. My breath whistled through the narrow stovepipe of my throat.
    Then, for whatever reason, I burst out laughing.
    I’m a goddamn moron.
    Rolling onto my side, I crawled, still trembling with a case of the giggles, toward the embankment. Once I was close enough, I grabbed a tree branch that extended over the lake. Finally secure in my footing, I hauled myself up and crossed from the frozen lake onto solid ground. Despite being the only living soul in the vicinity, I felt like an imbecile.
    A tree limb snapped behind a veil of trees in front of me.
    I froze. Again, I thought I saw something move beyond the intertwining branches, but I couldn’t be sure. “Hello?” I called. My voice shook. “Someone there? I could use some help if there is.”
    No one answered. No one moved.
    I kept my gaze trained on the spot between the trees, but I could see nothing. A deer, perhaps? Some forest critter creeping through the underbrush? Whatever it was, I was freezing my ass off out here trying to figure it out.
    Shivering, my entire body slowly being consumed by the numbness originating from my deadened left leg, I took a deep breath and made my way up the snowy embankment toward the house.

CHAPTER FIVE
    I t has been said that nature does not know extinction—that once you’ve existed, all parts of you, whether they’ve dispersed or remained together, will always
be.
Thick dust may hide the relics of human history, but it cannot erase the memory.
    Picture a large, square conference room, with teal carpeting and alabaster acoustical tiles in the ceiling. Look around. You will notice that the mahogany benches are dull beneath the heated spotlights and crowded with suburban onlookers. At one end of the room are two large double doors with tapered brass levers, newly shined.
    A cluster of people, solemn and reposed in what they so ignorantly consider their most formal attire, stands against the back wall, shuffling uncomfortably from right foot to left foot. The men with their hair awkwardly parted and grease matted to their scalps, the women with half-moon impressions on their palms where their nails have been digging in. Their hairstyles are outdated, and their inability to recognize this fact only reaffirms their small-town-ness. These are my