Status Updates From There Were No Windows

Claire never relaxed. And that was probably the main reason for her loss of memory: she had lived at a continuous tension; there had been a continual striving to be amusing and entertaining; now, she was an old actress, running about, mouthing her lines, gesticulating and weeping on an empty stage in front of no footlights, no audience.

She went back to the dining room, and stumbled over a chair as she groped her way back to the fire. There she sat crying softly, for her brain had dulled, and she was only conscious of the cruelty of it all: people were having a party, and she was not allowed to go.

Imagining that she was holding a fan, that a man's arm clasped her tiny waist, that the band was seductive, that the floor was excellent, that her partner was beginning to be just a little in love with her, and was murmuring something about the fineness of her eyes. She paused for breath, and then glided and swayed once more, dancing on and on to the music that had played in other years.