“What will she do?”

“Her job is to deal with all your worries and fears.”

He went to the door and opened it, and looked as though he were about to say something. He nodded and went out. I lay there trying to imagine that this had not happened. I kept saying “I cannot handle this” over and over to myself.

The counselor came in and pulled up a chair beside the bed. She asked me if I wanted someone to ring my mother. I told her that my mother was dead. She looked at the chart and said, no, her name and number are here. No, she’s dead, I said, she died years ago, and I do not have anybody else who is close to me and you can ring her if you like but you will get no reply. The woman held my hand. You must be devastated, she said, you must be devastated. Have you cried yet, she asked. Maybe you should cry. I shook my head and said that I did not want to cry. Did I have any friend whom I would like to see, she asked. No, I did not, I told her. I would be okay, I said, I did not want to see anybody. I might feel differently in the morning, she said. I wanted her to leave me. Had I made a will, she asked. It might put my mind at rest if I made a will. I told her I would think about it and talk to her in the morning. She said that she did not usually come in on Saturdays but she would come to the hospital in the morning in case I needed to talk some more.

I lay there believing that someone would come to talk to me, that someone would give me an injection and make me sleep, that I would have an hour or two away from this, in oblivion somewhere. When it got late I called a nurse and said that I needed a sleeping pill. She said that she would ask the doctor on duty. When she did not return I called her again. She said she had asked the doctor and would ask him again. Later, she came back with a pill in a tiny plastic cup. I took the pill and lay back and tried to sleep. I dreamed that I was dead. I was lying in the hold of a boat at the marina beside my house. I was naked, my body was all white and washed, ready to be taken out to sea, my dick was all slack and my eyes were closed and my mouth was closed, and I could hear the motor starting and the rush of water against the body of the boat. Two men were talking. I lay there, dead, inert. But my mind was still there, and I could feel everything and know everything and remember everything. But I could not move or speak and soon I would be lowered overboard and there would be nothing I could do. When I woke I realized that the dream was real, that being awake was no relief. I watched the lights come on in the corridor outside and the morning begin in the hospital. I thought of the American doctor lying asleep in a bed somewhere in the city, at ease and warm. I lay there repeating to myself the phrase “I cannot handle this” as though it would save my life.