He gazed at the rose-blossoming wall, fascinated by the swirling mural, shades of dark cherry and poppy coming together then apart as he moved his eyes. Holding up his swelling hands, he watched as the patterns covered his sore flesh and aching bones. At last he could taste it. If red had a flavour, it should have been strawberry sweet and syrupy. This was a savoury dish, one left in the pan too long. Somehow still hot, but he could taste the saucepan, as if the metal had permeated the food. It stuck to his tongue, immune to his attempts to swallow it away. A waterfall tumbled through his ears, the crashing of an unstoppable liquid force. He had become a river of blood. It fell from his eyes and ears, trickled from his mouth, leaked from his lower opening. The sickness within his body had been released into the world. That was all right. He was ready to go now.

All he wanted was to leave in comfort, wrapped in the bed cover that had once belonged to his mother, her final embrace from beyond the grave. Breathing was difficult. Invisible hands squeezed his chest, and there was a tentacle around his throat. Grasping the bed cover, he put every ounce of everything he could muster into climbing up, pulling with his arms, pushing with the one leg that was still mobile – he couldn’t feel the left any more, if it was even still there. Parts of him were becoming detached. His stomach was free-falling, leaving him floating in a pool of pain that had little effect. Pain was the engine light flashing in your car, nothing more. Once you conquered it, climbed inside it, you could see it for what it was. His body was sending him a message, and he got it.

The futility of trying to clamber onto the bed fully realised, he opted to bring the mountain to him instead. Little by little as he pulled, the bed cover shifted from the bed to the floor. He didn’t look at the mess he was making on it, didn’t want to see those bloody flowers taking root on the precious fabric.

As the last material slid to the ground with a hushed thud, Fergus’ legs gave way entirely. Falling into the soft padding, he breathed as deeply as his lungs would allow, smelling soap and hand cream, freshly baked biscuits and mowed grass. All of home, of what it meant to him, in one sensory hit.

Pushing himself away from the bed, he managed to force his body to roll, still holding the cover. It went with him, cocooning around his torso so that only his face was still visible. He rolled another 180 degrees, leaving him facing a wall on which hundreds of images were displayed.