Then he felt the ground drop away from under his knees and he slid back over the edge, feeling a strange floating, a turning, with the roar of wind in his ears and a spinning disc of blue sky and green hills, and stray things blowing through his mind like bits of paper down an alley — the islands, the insurance, the brown firm flesh of the young girls, the mirror on his office wall, the strong slim hands with which he was going to paint...