Napowrimo 2023/my15th
year/day 29
THE LONGEST NIGHT
They said that it must
have been the morphine talking
when I told different
people what had happened that night
in the hospital after
my operation
but you couldn't make
these things up I know what I saw
and I'm sticking to it
that seems like a long time ago now
but I remember it as
being a very long night
forcing myself to keep
awake convinced that they would kill me next
if I even fell asleep
for a few minutes
In the distance I could
hear a woman screaming in the corridor
and what sounded like
steel trays being bashed about her bonce
it was impossible for
me to move I had to lie flat on my back
with a drip in my arm
I also had two young
nurses sitting at my bedside
studying a computer
screen
that may or may not
have been monitoring my brain
Of course the problem
didn't start until the young nurses
were asked if they
wanted to stay to watch the filming
or if they would like
to take a break they chose to take a break
and I never saw them
again the filming was absolutely mad
the rest of the staff
on the ward having dressed up in outrageous costumes
in various states of
dress or undress were now filming each other doing mad things
I'm sure they were
taking credit card customers requests over the internet
Anyway that night was
nothing compared to last night
which truly was the
longest night I can remember
I had come down with
the dreaded lurgy a few days previously
and had been shivering
and coughing and overheating then shivering again
but last night I came
down with the whole thing and I was delirious
and sweating like a pig
I started to imagine that I was going completely mad
I kept on seeing a
video of a disaster playing in my head
And try as I might I
couldn't let it go I woke up sweating
went back to sleep
wringing wet woke up again
and couldn't get the
disaster movie out of my head
I was absolutely
totally confused about my situation
I felt like I should
call a doctor for help but that's impossible
these days as the phone
rings out three or four times and then rings off
anyway I had the
advantage of knowing that I had the virus
And that despite me
being completely flummoxed by it
there would actually
have been nothing much that a doctor could have done
so I had gone to bed at
nine pm which is really really early for me
as I often don't retire
until way past midnight
of course after I went
to bed the bad dreams turned into chaotic nightmares
and I began sweating
and shivering and tossing and turning
until I became a
gibbering wreck I can't say too much more about this experience
apart from the fact
that it was the longest night of my life
29042023
