Waiting for the lift, I imagine these worlds as one gigantic subterranean space. They rest on top of one another like discs and become more unfathomable the further you advance from the waking point. Nobody knows what it’s like at its outermost edge. Maybe a lot different. Maybe coma isn’t a dark zone. Maybe it’s identical to life in the waking zone, where I’m now sitting and hoping that my father will respond to my pressure and squeeze my hand. Hoping that just once he will approach the waking zone, through all the different levels and zones and degrees of darkness, via the staircases and corridors that appear abruptly through the fog of medication and dreams, allowing him for a few short moments to navigate a path through all the intermediate zones between waking and death, and surface.

If he squeezes my hand, he’s still here. “I’m here, Sam, I’m here. Even if I’m elsewhere. I’m coming back.”

But so far he hasn’t squeezed back. Not after the first operation, nor after the second, when they mended his ruptured spleen and pinned his broken arm, nor after a further ten days.

Maybe today?

Eddie

“You look a bit cross today, Mrs. Tomlin.”

“I’m not cross, Dr. Foss.”

“Of course not. My apologies.”

“I’m furious. There’s a difference, wouldn’t you say?”

“Certainly, Mrs. Tomlin.” Dr. Foss remains as friendly as a butler pouring tea, but I can hear my voice getting louder. My fear is howling inside me like a wounded animal.

“Are you actually doing anything, or are you simply allowing him to wither away in order to save money?” I snarl.

Dr. Foss is standing behind me, but I can see his face in the mirror in the brightly lit, tiled room in which, every day for the last fourteen days, I’ve put on a smock and taken it off again, disinfected my hands and lower arms, and pulled a white oval mask over my mouth and nose. Dr. Foss purses his lips almost imperceptibly and stares at the floor. I’ve hurt his feelings. Hallelujah. In a sense, I am grateful that there are still people with feelings to hurt in English hospitals. You need to have some feelings in the first place for them to be hurt, and if you have feelings, you can empathize.

“I’m sorry, I’m not usually like this. Or I hope not, anyway.”