I step into the room. A balloon inflates inside my throat. Truth is, seeing Hank has never been easy. I’d been there when it happened, and it just as easily could be me lying there with tubes to pump food in and tubes to pump shit out and a ventilator forcing air into my lungs and then releasing it. The machine measuring his heart rate beeps softly and I suddenly wonder if he can actually hear. Talk to him, the nurse said. But really, if he can hear people talking to him then he can hear the beep beep beep. And that has got to be driving him insane, each reiteration a reminder of the life he’s not living, the things he’s missing, the way it’s all turned out. The balloon in my throat’s getting bigger and I’m starting to have trouble breathing. There’s a window just beyond the bed, and I step over to open it up, taking a few gasps of air before pulling up a chair. When I’ve visited him in the past I’ve tended to just sit, hoping that somehow he can feel my presence.

But with the knowledge that Nellie’s decision to turn off life support has been approved and that all we’re waiting for is the date, I suddenly feel I need to talk to him.

‘Hank, it’s me.’

The words fall dead into the room. No resonance, no response.

I suddenly realize how much of our world is based on communicating with each other. So many ways to do it now as well that we’re almost constantly communicating, the barrier of space a barrier no longer. We can talk to people all over the world, send messages that arrive instantly, but there are some barriers we’ve yet to break. And Hank’s behind one of them.