With his open palm he slaps me, and screams into my face, wide-eyed and grieving, a noise that is like a dockside winch going very badly wrong. It lasts for a remarkably long time, rising and falling. I stare into his mouth, past his teeth. I see his uvula. I smell his breath, stinking and heavy with coffee. The sound is surprisingly complex. If you were to graph it, you’d want a three-dimensional representation of its components one against another to appreciate it properly. Because of the phlegm in his throat, it’s coming out as a chord, and I can see the colours around it hanging in the air.