8
Dying
Thessaloniki, March 2010
He lay in bed with the mask on. The pale skin of his face felt puffed up through the mask’s harsh plastic pressing against the sides of his nose. He could feel his distended stomach spreading on both sides as he lay on his back, his legs nearly alien to him, paralysed, stick-thin as they had become, emaciated through years of heavy steroid use. Through his half-closed eyes he could see his left arm, covered in bruises, a collection from his repeated hospital stays in the last few months. It was only two o’clock in the afternoon, but the shutters were drawn in and the bright ceiling lamp was on, even though he drifted in and out of dozing. The only noise in the room was the sound of the oxygen ventilator, and his legs occasionally shuffling against the be
