The Crossing

I THINK that if I could I would now stop them. I do not need to be any longer. I even credit them with some intuition of this beyond their drilled and dutiful ministration of their tasks.

The man says, “Poor Bugger, s’not like living like, s’not really, is it, know what I mean, just zisting, like, feel sorry for ‘im like, poor old sod.”

The woman says, “Yeah, I’d rather go if it was me.”

He says, “I know, yeah, but not like there’s a choice, though, not really, is it.”

The woman says, “Lift him up a bit for me, Tony, under his armpits, that’s right. There we are, OK darling, that comfier then. Good.”

Tony says, “Bit of a whiff on him, Gloria. Should we change his pad now?”

Gloria says, “Nah. He’s all right for a bit. Do it later. Bit of a rush on now. There’s the one downstairs to see to, an’ I gotta go shopping before I go home. Do him next time. Tuck him in on your side, Tone. Bit more, love, put his head on one side of the pillow. Towards the window. I’ll lift the sides up. Click ‘em tight and it’s all done. Ta.”

So it goes, these paid-for visits. In and out. Thirty minutes max each time. Fed and watered. Turned over. Propped up. Wiped clean. Tablets given. Tucked in. I know the routine as well as they do. Sometimes, though I’m sure they cannot tell, I fall fast asleep as they go about their business with me. Most of the time, the rest of the time, I sleep anyway. In my sleep I have time to see, ponder, feel, sense, even taste somehow what has gone as if it was fresh and new. As long as this still happens, I will not be ready to leave, not even from this husk which contains me, and everything that once made me.

IN sleep I have no control over the order in which thoughts and sensations unwrapped from memory come to assail me. I delight in this. I am their plaything not their master. One surprise package arrives after another, and some flee on the instant they arrive, where others, for no apparent cause, choose to linger.