On such a night, I am awake. My watching nurse has said that, no, I cannot listen to another side of a tape: I must sleep, she says, I need to rest. My headache pulses away, a bright, daemonic metronome. I look out, always, from behind its blinding white mask. The noise of the television from the ward has ceased, so I know it is late; it is deep into the night. Am I falling into sleep or something else when I hear the noise in the corridor outside? Footsteps, the fluting voice of a child, a rhythmic noise like a toy being dragged along the lino. The child says something in a high, enquiring
...more
