I can feel the uneven-lumpy ground digging into my bare back and then I can’t feel anything of the ground. Only a peculiar mortifying pain. A pain that is so magnificent that I do not have the words or the breath to describe it. For I am without breath and even through this pain I am not without hate. Hate for Jerome. As I drift in and out of my orbit, my reality, my day off, I can hear the frantic voices of Mikey and Joey and Maeve asking me if I’m all right and do I think that they’ll still be getting an ice cream? I can hear them discussing how unfair it will be if I don’t follow through on my earlier promise as they’ll be going back to school and that the Mr Whippy van will be gone for good if I don’t get up off the ground and do something.

This agony leaves me breathless and I’m not even sure of my own name now and I will myself to come out of this but at the same time I’m not strictly sure if that is actually what I desire. Because now I realize that in another way I feel quite contented with my lot. I have three beautiful children and a wife, who is at once attractive but also artistically talented. My whole body is burning and I feel like I am crawling with itch and my skin is so uncomfortable that I feel like I could scratch it off but my nails are insufficiently long.