There are seven steps between the foot of the path and the blue painted oak door of her house. They’re slightly too far apart for walking up foot-by-foot, slightly too close together to run up.  You have to hobble up in a kind of awkward shuffle. And they’re unevenly spaced. You have to really concentrate on these steps.

“How do you know it’s oak?” asks Sarah, as she wiggles awkwardly up the unsociably designed walkway.

“She told me,” replies Samayamantri, “in 1997, at the cinema.”

“What were you going to see?” asks Hayley, on the fourth step.

“As Good as it Gets,” he replies

“And was it?” (Sixth step now)

“No.”

Hayley knocks on the blue painted oak door. It responds with a dull, PVC thud. “She lied.”

“Oh.”