About half an hour before he died Mr Millar woke up, aware that he might start seeing things from out the different shapes in the bedroom, especially all these clothes hanging on the pegs on the door, their suddenly being transformed into ghastly kinds of bodies, perhaps hovering in mid air. It was not a good feeling; and having reflected on it for quite a few minutes he began dragging himself up onto his elbows to peer about the place. And his wrists felt really strange, as if they were bloodless or something, bereft of blood maybe, no blood at all to course through the veins. For a wee while he became convinced he was losing his sanity altogether, but no, it was not that, not that precisely; what it was, he saw another possibility, and it was to do with crossing the edge into a sort of madness he had to describe as “proper”—a proper madness. And as soon as he recognized the distinction he began to feel better, definitely. Then came the crashing of a big lorry, articulated by the sound of it. Yes, it always had been a liability this, living right on top of such a busy bloody road. He was resting on his elbows still, considering all of it, how it had been so noisy, at all hours of the day and night. Terrible. He felt like shouting on the wife to come ben so’s he could tell her about it, about how he felt about it, but he was feeling far too tired and he had to lie back down.