To the hotel to reclaim my money and my clothing?

To the hospital for the medicine of which I was sorely in need?

Or to New Orleans to Louis, Louis who had to help me, Louis who was perhaps the only one who really could. And how was I to locate that miserable conniving self-destructive Body Thief if I did not have the help of Louis! Oh, but what would Louis do when I approached him? What would his judgment be when he realized what I’d done?

I was falling. I’d lost my balance. I reached for the iron railing too late. A man was rushing towards me. Pain exploded in the back of my head as it struck the step. I closed my eyes, clenching my teeth not to cry out. Then opened them again, and I saw above me the most serene blue sky.

“Call an ambulance,” said the man to another beside him. Just dark featureless shapes against the glaring sky, the bright and wholesome sky.

“No!” I struggled to shout, but it came out a hoarse whisper. “I have to get to New Orleans!” In a rush of words I tried to explain about the hotel, the money, the clothing, would someone help me up, would someone call a taxi, I had to leave Georgetown for New Orleans at once.

Then I was lying very quietly in the snow. And I thought how lovely was the sky overhead, with the thin white clouds racing across it, and even these dim shadows that surrounded me, these people who whispered to one another so softly and furtively that I couldn’t hear. And Mojo barking, Mojo barking and barking. I tried, but I couldn’t speak, not even to tell him that everything would be fine, just perfectly fine.

A little girl came up. I could make out her long hair, and her little puff sleeves and a bit of ribbon blowing in the wind. She was looking down at me like the others, her face all shadows and the sky behind her gleaming frightfully, dangerously.

“Good Lord, Claudia, the sunlight, get out of it!” I cried.

“Lie still, mister, they’re coming for you.”

“Just lie quiet, buddy.”

Where was she? Where had she gone? I shut my eyes, listening for the click of her heels on the pavement. Was that laughter I heard?

The ambulance. Oxygen mask. Needle. And I understood.

I was going to die in this body, and it would be so simple! Like a billion other mortals, I was going to die. Ah, this was the reason for all of it, the reason the Body Thief had come to me, the Angel of Death to give me the means which I had sought with lies and pride and self-deception. I was going to die.

And I didn’t want to die!

“God, please, not like this, not in this body.” I closed my eyes as I whispered. “Not yet, not now. Oh, please, I don’t want to! I don’t want to die. Don’t let me die.” I was crying, I was broken and terrified and crying. Oh, but it was perfect, wasn’t it? Lord God, had a more perfect pattern ever revealed itself to me—the craven monster who had gone into the Gobi not to seek the fire from heaven but for pride, for pride, for pride.