But I was dying. Dying in my prime, fully conscious, lying in the resuscitation department of cardiovascular surgery. Young little nurses scurried around, stirring the autumn air with their stiffly starched blue uniforms. The duty doctors talked quietly. They were tired, exhausted, with the usual dark rings under their eyes, with phonendoscopes ready hanging on their chests, and their fingers smelling of tobacco.
I was dying, dying silently, without a single groan, cry or complaint, because breathing, making a noise and complaining for me were the breathing and blood circulation machines, and a countless miscellany of wires and tubes linking my body with them were my last hope of life. Worn out by my own inactivity, I began to sink ever deeper into a cold sweaty gloom. Everything I could
