27th–28th August 2010
Yazid drifted.
He drifted for a long time before the world began to come back. Little sparks of sound. Whispers of movement around the edges of his mind. And eventually—
Yazid came round slowly. Sound introduced itself gently—a muted, far-away hustle-and-bustle and an odd, distant echo to voices not quite in the room. Then came smell—a sterile, antiseptic kind of stink, like the insides of first aid kits, or…
He cracked open his eyes. One felt puffy and sore; the other gritty and heavy, like the eyelashes were clumped together. There was a faint, patchy red mist over the world and when he blinked, it didn’t go away.
“Wh’t’s…”
There was nobody there. All he could see were white ceiling tiles and the gentle blue of a closed hospital curtain. His head hurt, poundin
