way down each stair. I knew that eventually I would trip and lose all my forty zillion volumes of assorted literature, and, as an added bonus, not one of the books was paperback. I had jagged edges poking into me every which way, and, as you can imagine, that is not comfortable.

I heard the stairwell door click open and slam shut above me. Great, I thought. Foot traffic. Whoever it was noisily came down behind me at an insane pace. Obviously they were very late for something or other. I didn't bother moving for them, as they would realize my handicap and slide past me politely. So I thought. Until a tremendous weight plowed into my back right between my shoulder blades.

I probably could have saved myself if there had been something to lean on, but as the cheapo school had nothing, I fell. And fell hard. The books flew out of my arms and I heard myself scream as I started plummeting to the bottom of the staircase. The next thing I knew, my head hit the linoleum floor with a loud thunk. There was a sharp pain and a warm flowing feeling in the back of my head. Black dots danced in front of my eyes and I tried to inhale, but I couldn't. My stomach tossed and turned in uncertainty and my lungs screamed for air I couldn't give them. For a few torturous seconds I actually felt like something was going to explode. Then, the real pain kicked in.

Apparently, before my head smashed into the tiling, my back served as a shock-absorber. Except it didn't absorb very well. More like multiply. Agony radiated from my spine outward to my chest and inflated my oxygen-intake problems. Not only couldn't I take in enough air, whenever I did, the pain escaladed back to the starting point.

There was a loud crash above me and a loud "WOAH!" My head was spinning too fast to tell who it was. Even if I could, it wouldn't matter. Whoever it was was in for the worst beating of their life. As soon as I could move again, of course.

Something crashed on top of me and pressed down on my throbbing back. I almost cried out. The damn thing was heavy. Much too heavy to be a book. Dots still swam in front of me, so I couldn't tell what it was. The helplessness of the situation made me feel weak, one thing I hated being. I started getting very angry with whoever, whatever this stupid thing on top of me was.