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Sansom gave Shardlake a deformed spine — unkind folks call him “crookback” — and, along with the prosthetics, Hughes, born with radial dysplasia, brings his own foreshortened, twisted right arm.

Until they realize that living together, as messy as it is likely to be, is far preferable to the existential fear of foreshortened, forestalled and anxiety-filled lives recycled forever.

But that version of the story has been so foreshortened that I think it skips over the most significant facts, not to mention the unanswered questions.

One of the more intriguing aspects of his foreshortened life was an attitude described here as Romantic Cruelism: a pose of complete indifference or dark humor even in the face of tragedy.

The exception is Tom Sliter’s intimate close-up of two skaters’ feet and ankles, in which only foreshortened shadows disclose the existence of the full bodies beyond the frame.