Recovery Position

I don’t want to let her go. The machine keeps her alive… just. The odd flicker I see in her face, and no-one else does. There is that necklace, with the dolphins, the one I gave her for her birthday. It moves with her breathing, the inhuman hiss and click of the machine behind her a ghastly thing we would rather do without. We will not need it for long.

     I feel a nurse touch my arm. They want me to make a decision. Keep her here, in the land of the living, or let her go, like some blessed balloon. First the nurse, then the doctor, are firm about this. They want more. They want her to benefit others. I want her to be there for me. Hiss, click. Hiss, click. There is a kind of eloquence to it in ventilating her life, propping her up, but it is nothing compared to her poetry, her life, her voice. I so want to hear it again.

     They say our time is up. They need the bed, apparently. What do they think she is doing, lying here for her own convenience? A thousand times, I would rather have her in our bed. They say her condition will not change, no matter what. I like to think of her sailing away with the dolphins, away up the loch, strong and powerful. The lights are going out. I cannot bear to look.