The large sitting room at the front of the manor house was empty.
The owner entered the room, he was a big man in his fifties. Maybe older, the author wasn’t sure. As he brushed by the slender table, the Monumental Russian Imperial Cut-Crystal Vase wobbled. It may fall; it may not. He lowered himself into a leather, or perhaps faux leather armchair and picked up the newspaper. It may have been a magazine; the writer would decide that later, depending entirely on whether or not it became relevant. Hardly had he picked up whatever it was, the phone rang. He struggled up, crossed the room and answered it. It was his brother, or his brother-in law, either way he was ringing with bad news. The voice was saying that there had been a terrible traffic accident…
He stopped scribbling. He laid his pen down carefully and stared out into the garden. As a dramatist, he wasn’t sure how the story should develop. He would scribble a note about it later. As for the crystal vase, it didn’t fall off. In the whole scheme of things it probably wouldn’t have mattered if it had.
He wasn’t sure.