Yesterday I was walking back from the train station to my house, it was raining and gloomy. I noticed a man sitting at the bottom of the steps leading from the front of a house to the pavement. At first I assumed he'd just a had a bit too much to drink. About two steps past him I realized something was wrong.

I went back, bent down and asked if he was okay. As if in response he keeled over to his left. His shoulder hit the pavement, followed by a muffled thud as his head struck the pavement too. I got my phone out to call an ambulance.

I tried talking to him, and he responded by swearing at me in a slow, slurred voice. When the ambulance arrived I told the medic what I knew, and left.

I was in shock for the rest of the day, still am a bit.

A chapter of Dostoevsky's Demons ends with the words, 'I'll never forget the sound her head made as it struck the carpet'.