The Fallen (excerpt)

A wheel spins on the horizontal, slowing to stillness in the frigid hall.  Books lie scattered.  His fingertips trace the outline of a decorative teaspoon long lost beneath the shelving, till now.  Thigh stumps waving for balance above his behind, he spins like a wagon on a wheelhouse to face his locomotive once more.  Gripping a leg, he tips the chair back into its upright.  Applies the brakes, one click following the other.  Shuffles a bit more then, wheezing from the effort, he builds a countering stack of Virgilius and Plautus upon which he can steadily lift his once-sturdy-still-tough frame up and back into a comfortable sit.

'Bain!' He calls, the dust motes dancing a-fresh from the cry.

'What?'

'Bain, come here, please.  I'd like a little hand.'

A few footsteps, and just that appears: a tiny plastic hand on a long black stick from around the open door, followed by the cheerful grin of Baruch Bain, entrepreneur and befriender of elderly codgers.

'Give over, you nonce,' says Cauldwell.  'Give us a hand.'  They pick-up, and rally-round, and re-shelve, and put the dust back down.  

'Tokens.  I was looking for me tokens.'

'I put them on the kitchen board, ya daft bugger.  Y'watched me do it.'