22
I don't know why I keep pulling at this bastard handcuff. It's not coming off. And the bedrail it's attached too won't budge either. Not because it's especially sturdy. It's just that I'm so bloody weak.
I look around the ward, the bed propped up forty-five degrees. There's an old man with a broken leg, elevated in a sling. A young guy who looks like he's been in a car wreck: head wrapped in bandages and arm set in plaster. Another middle-aged bloke on a drip with a post-op dressing on his throat.
Then there's me. Hooked up to a catheter bag
It's not that I can't piss. The nurses say I can't walk far enough to the toilet.
Here comes one of 'em now.
"Nurse," I say, rattling the cuff against the bed rail. "Any chance of a mirror?”
She's a short, tubby blonde with the bedside manner
