I lie here - half alive. Cast adrift to float in raging seas of suffering and marooned on this shadowy isle, I slide further under the blankets and prepare to shiver yet more endless, abandoned hours away... The television - half-baked. A game show host - an oil slick of insincerity - is tearing off tissues of toothsome tosh, but the remote has sailed far out on the horizon so I instinctively croak the capital of China with mind-numbing dismay... These sandwiches - half eaten. Did the doctor really precribe corned beef drowning in fruity sauce as a panacea for Martian flu? What I would love to dignose, right now, are rashes of her footfalls on the stairs, accompanied by the ambrosial aromas of broth, soup or stew... A chirping from below - half expected. Some colleague pestering whether I'm all right (rhetorical questions are the office credo). They want me back, she says, to close a dogs dinner deal, but shaking with... I sink into the sodden pillows and agree they'll have to wait for my virulent self-pitying to heal... |