It was rarely quiet, but sometimes in the afternoon, through the open window I couldn't see, I could hear the pat-pock of tennis balls, the laughter of parakeets and the flurry of ducks from the park below. Surreal, those moments.
Largely, the noise was that of health care and individual pain and self-pity. It went on and on and on.
It was too hot, too cold, too light, too dark.
For days I was eaten by an air mattress. I couldn't eat myself so...
There was a man who came mostly in the early hours. His name was Ange. In the darkest times, I saw the angel of death. But when he smiled...
Some just talked and talked. Some told them to shut up. Some went quiet and cried. Some shouted their pain and frustration.
No-one left when they were supposed to.
Things happened too quickly or too slowly. Or not at all.
People came and went. I was still there.
I remembered all the things I'd feared and written about and it felt like I had written my future, but there was no consolation in being right, just the hollow laugh at the irony. Before the tears flowed again.
And the inability to just give up, however hellish it became, however much that seemed the easier option, the only option. A lifeline would dangle and be snatched back, again and again. Torment. No control. No escape. But still...
When the person you love and who loves you is there, then you fight to go on.
All I wanted, all anyone wanted, was to go home.
