Week 2 Prompt: Missing Stair, Title: Pieces of the self

Georgia runs, past the car park and the pharmacy and the oh-so-familiar purple-walled café on the corner, knowing the fire escape she’s going for before she reaches it: she could do the route unthinking, she could even do it blind-folded. Her feet thud in rapid-fire against the metallic black steps. It’s as her right foot dips too fast into nothing that she realises she’s been careless. The missing stair has always been there, no one bothering to fix the disused exit. This thought fills her panicked mind as momentum causes her left leg to slip too far forward and her hands fail to find purchase.

(A toddler being carried over within arms strong and secure, a young child carefully stretching her leg out until it yawned over and bridged the crack, a prepubescent- her still small hands gripping the rails- laughing as she swung herself over the gap.)  

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