2.24 p.m. THERE IS NO pain. At first, it is a simple statement of fact. Despite the tennis-ball-sized exit cavity in his abdomen, all Edgar can feel down there is an awful, unnatural coldness, a freezing/burning sensation like ice. His breathing is constricted, but miracle of miracles, there is no pain. There is no pain. And as he pushes the trolley from Clocks into Stationery, and from Stationery into Newspapers & Periodicals, and as the pins-and-needles coldness creeps upwards into his chest, Edgar tries not to think about the damage inside him, how much of him may have been ruined beyond repair. He tries to ignore the dark stain slicking over the waistband of his trousers down towards his crotch. Above all, he tries to ignore the hole, with its fringe of gore and shredded shirt, but it is hard to resist looking at it. That is him. That is his torn flesh. That bulge of something yellow-pink and glistening peeking out of the wound is one of his internal organs, which he was never supposed to see.
