I smell smoke, and Nurse Marion says to the others, “He just passed me in the corridor,” but although this is true, no one listens to her. She goes quietly and alone out into the corridor because she’s not needed at the deceased’s bedside, and a few seconds later I get a whiff of fresh air. Marion has opened a window, and whatever it was that was desperately seeking to exit the ward and touched me on its way past is relieved to be able to escape. I savor the unexpected aromas. It’s as if the air has wandered the streets of London throughout the night and is now bringing the whole city to me: the smell of beer and the echo of loud music, the odors of people on the Underground, cinnamon, and the dirty brown water of the Thames.

The dead body still gives off the occasional spark as it is wheeled out of the ward. I can see this and more, but I’ll never be able to tell anyone.

I’ve had time to think, to think properly about the situation. I’ve never had as much as now because I am made up entirely of thoughts. And thirst.

I’ll probably never make it back to the other side of the glass barrier. Not today, not tomorrow, not easily. I’m buried alive inside myself, condemned to remain “in between” forever. Before the disc zone, as I call it—the narrow band on the edge of reality and the plain where something is always driving me toward the shores and decisive forks in my life where I was in the wrong or my spirit was weak. That something allows me to experience what might have been if I’d acted or decided differently between leaving and staying, kissing and running away; if I had said yes instead of no.

I have searched and searched for the right life—and never found it. None of the lives was perfect, no matter what I did or didn’t do. And out there, where I can see and hear real people more clearly with every passing hour—although they cannot see or hear me—I realize there’s a second world, which seems to shimmer like a mirage or sparkle through water vapor. Nobody’s aware of it, maybe not even Nurse Marion, although the night nurse does appear to be more sensitive than the others. I’ve always found her thoughts to be the clearest.

She calls the dead “the others,” and it’s an accurate description. I sometimes call them “the watchers.” Like my father, who’s waiting out there somewhere for me, and whom I am only able to see because I myself am half dead. He’s watching me, as he has probably been doing for decades, although I’ve been almost unaware of it.