That was six years ago, and he had made a habit of it; with the help of his friendly pharmacist he had downed a considerable number in his time. Zimovane, one of the Z group of drugs, a non-benzodiazepine. Zolpidem is another member of the grey cell killing Z family, more common in the US, where it goes under the trade name Ambien. Now they, Ambien, they are special, they take your brain away for a while and what they do with it you can never remember. But tonight it is a Zimovane, the medical name for this hypnotic agent is zopiclone, a fuzzy-brain maker, that did not always work but he limited himself to a maximum of 15 mg a night, never more, twice the recommended maximum dose. He took less if he could, you felt shit in the morning. The claim was that they were a contributor to something or other, dementia, that’s it; the one to look forward to if you can remember.

Those medical folk again.

There was no hope, then.

It, at least, staved off the dream he had had since childhood, which always felt like he was not asleep but fully awake, and hovering above his bed was a large, pale blue hand, there comes his dislike of the colour, swollen as if someone had blown it up like a washing-up glove. Pale blue, there it was, without any explanation as to why, or any indication of any action that it might take, but it was always frightening, even as an adult he found it frightening, it woke him from what already felt like a woken state and he found himself now disorientated with a genuine feeling of terror. Panic. A panic that it hadn’t gone because the waking state brought no relief as he had had no concept of having been asleep. He was just there. He supposed it was because it always seemed to have the intention of taking him away, where to, he never knew, and, to be fair to the swollen pale blue hand, it never had. In thirty years. But he supposed there was always a first time. One night.

This was a sleepless night, even with the drugs; his thoughts were of Clarissa, Jacob and Lomita precisely in that order. The time spent on each was not consistent with the order, the pain was greater with some than others and the love also carried a variation in intensity. But, as always with Ever’s brain, the choice was not really his.

He lay there being played with by his brain and wondered why his brain had these times of acting with complete independence.

Chapter Seventeen

Ever felt he needed to be more anonymous.

He thought that he should trade in his rather stand-out rental and purchase an old car.