Sir, as I lay decaying away in my cotton fresh sterilised linen; gathering bedsores in my clean cut catacomb; my prescription-medicinal bedsheets with spots and specks of old red. I am at the pinnacle of fashion with the latest in viral infections. Anti-toxins or antibiotics or something screech along my highway arteries. Sir, look at my Gucci brand thrombosis. My Chanel labelled tuberculosis. My Prada handmade-in-Italy style anaphylactic shock. A very personal “high culture” syndrome.

She says:

“You’ve been in here a long time.”

Like a pneumatic drill, Sir, it sounds like a pneumatic drill grinding along concrete. My weighted head crunches backwards into the starchy pillow so I’m looking up at the fluorescent striplight.

She says:

“I’m getting lonely, I’m getting old.”

In her own bulldozer barrage way of saying things, she’s right Sir, She is getting old.

She says:

“I can’t deal with this. I’m sorry”

Squeezing out a contrived tear and the curtain closes. She’s played her part and bids me adieu. She sounds like a jackhammer on asphalt. And together- alone- the hospital seems so empty. But she can’t deal with this. Day by day by day. Hour by hour. Each minute she is getting older. Each sad excuse for a human being, every snot-nosed degenerate, every single fucking loser on this fucking planet has a definite, predetermined length of time to live. A doctor’s “two weeks to live” so to speak. Sir, is it cancer? AIDS? Alcoholism? Life, my fellow sufferer is the biggest single killer in the entire world. Alert the media, it’s a global pandemic!

From your birth Sir, you are diagnosed with the most serious terminal illness under the sun. No immunity, everyone is susceptible- from a Hollywood socialite to an angsty wallflower. From an extrovert party animal to the world’s most valued brain surgeon. From a fucking hobo, slut or junkie to a messiah, idol or “living” legend. Does that sound fair Sir?

Sir, does that sound fair to you?

A sweet, small kiss on my dewy forehead seals the deal; and the ex-love of my life walks out of the sanitised saloon doors. Laid here, I watch her high chestnut ponytail march funeral-parade-style along the corridor, destination definite; through my claustrophobically tiny peepshow-slit window.

And, thank God I’m going into respiratory arrest or heart failure or something. So that they interbated me or something, because the next few moments would’ve been so awkward. And Sir, do you know what I can smell during my very own moment of crisis, the turning point in my life? Sir, I can smell stale, rancid tobacco on my doctor’s sweaty breath. The tobacco is the 10lbs a buck brand any self-pitying teenager can buy at an inconvenience store with a lousy fake ID. And I thought this was supposed to be a hospital. My moment to shine is a made-for-TV-movie, shown right after that slice and dice contraption infomercial at midnight. It’s called Quarantine the Epidemic 6: blah blah blah. The lead role played by Dr. Handsome, with an unhealthy Hasselhoff obsession. A supporting cast of motley washed-up “actors”. I’m just an extra in my own life. The lights are too hot so I sweat, putrid and yellow.