And then the thing with the finger.

It is a reflex.

I know it is a reflex.

They have been grabbing things for weeks by then and they will grab a pen or a nurse’s cuff or the edge of a blanket with precisely the same enthusiasm, and there is a part of my brain that has read about it and understands the mechanism.

The rest of my brain was not interested in the mechanism.

Her whole hand went round my little finger and shut, and every other thing in that building and that town and that decade went out like a light.