In a Lonely Place

3rd December 1996

It's 3.00 am and I am sitting on the edge of my hospital bed looking down at an empty car park. The ward is silent and dim. One night light on and that's mine. I have no intention of sleeping. I sit and watch as columns of steam rise and twist through the cooling vents. I sift through my broken thoughts, which are becoming more and more erratic, but it occurs to me, that no-one can prevent me from leaving this place. No-one, can bar the way. All that I need to do, is to sign the paperwork and then walk. So, why don't I? Is it that I am scared of authority, confinement, pain or being branded a coward? No, I am frightened of the unknown and dying. It is that simple.

6.00 am and there's a stranger at my bedside. He hands me a set of forms to read and sign. I sign, I don't read. He then imparts a little know fact, that there is a 2 percent chance that I could die in theatre or be condemned to living my life as a cripple. I thank him for his honesty and he leaves with a rye smile on his face.

Time accelerates, the hands of clock are spinning around and around, faster and faster. I cannot control time, I cannot send the sun back down, I cannot stop the nurses walking up and down, down then up. I cannot stop this day. I wish that the world would end today. A selfish thought I know but I do not want to die alone.

At about 8.30 my hair is shaved off and I am told to put on the backless gown that lies on the bed. It feels like I am about to be executed for a crime I did not commit. The event is starting to takeover. Means and ends are tangled. My whole body is shaking and my teeth are chattering. My mind is a void. I am finished. I am placed on a trolley and wheeled away. The floor dips and then opens into a pre-op room. I am shot full of drugs and I am told to count to ten...

I wake, dead or alive, on a lawn of lush green grass soaked in dew. I can  see an old white-washed brick wall. Bushes and trees everywhere; elms, poplars and sycamore. Mimosa and jade. The scent of honeysuckle rides on the air. And then it starts to rain and the ground starts to move. I have no foothold and I feel like I am sliding off the very face of the world. I am disappearing.