With this pharmaceutical inside him he was unable to feel body parts and had no sense of having any genitalia.

Then came the decision as to whether to actually have electroconvulsive therapy, ECT, administered under general anaesthetic, as small electric currents are passed through the brain with the intention of triggering a small seizure.

It was not surprising it was considered an option as the cocktail he was on had produced a zombie, visited only once by his wife, and as far as he felt, he could and would be left there to rot.

He could not take in, or analyse, any of the updates he was being given; how can you give information to a brain crash? Not that it was his decision to make, of course, no, by this time you are considered to be a fucking nutcase, but the cold woman, who made him feel cold, temperature-wise, who he remembered was dressed not in a white coat, as he would have expected, but in a clean-cut, two-piece suit in beige, a skirt and jacket; she looked executive, not medical. She was the, or at any rate, his, overseeing psychiatrist in the hospital, and she and his next of kin – in this case his wife, atypical, as she was not prone to bouts of great caring anymore – were to be the decision-makers.

The combination of these two women, he remembered, filled him with a terror that in his state of ever-growing anxiety he found hard to deal with.

The decision was taken.

There was to be no electroconvulsive therapy at the moment, while they waited to see what happened when the drugs took hold, as apart from the numbing, the medical shit has to permeate the pathways and channels of your brain and that takes a few weeks.

It was vetoed, in spite of the cold, beige besuited woman saying that it would be the most effective and quickest treatment to get him back on the road to recovery, and Ever was there in the room, but you must remember he was considered a nutter, so no acknowledgement of his presence from the moment he entered was ever proffered.

He was institutionalised for four weeks; his workplace was initially told it was a bad case of flu, but with thanks to his doctor, who he also considered to be a friend, it had developed into a more serious and credible-sounding debilitating condition called pericarditis, which did not carry the same scary prejudice that clings to those with mental conditions. But it has the seriousness of being an inflammation of the lining of the heart.

Good one, eh?

Any questioning relating to his absence was effectively dealt with.

No further questions asked; just sympathy pouring forth.

*

So you see, Ever did not have the best medical history to buy a gun.

Yet as it was never recorded on his medical files and took place in England, he was in the clear.

God help the world he was wandering through.