Fat Man's Dream

I am now lying on a bed in a room, alone; a room with bad florescent lighting and bare gray walls. Tubes of varying diameters flow from my arms, from my nose and from the backs of my hands. My arms are sore and stiff. There is a sleeve with a wire running from it clamped to the tip of one of my fingers. Bottles, plastic pouches and blue machines dangle like mobiles above my bed, swaying in concert with each small movement of my body. There are curtains, limp and lifeless, on the windows and around my bed but they are not drawn. The daylight in the room is sparse; a cloudy day or perhaps it is dusk or just before dawn.

My watch is gone from my wrist, replaced by a flat plastic identification bracelet that does not pretend to tell the time. There are a few shriveled plants on the window sill that will soon die without water.

I hear one of the blue boxes dangling above my head begin to beep loudly, an alarm I think.

I wait but no one comes.

I feel nothing. I can not speak or cry out. The alarm seems to grow louder but I am still alone.