The View from Here
There's Sprog's homework to "help with", i.e. to do. (I live in a "Homework Culture" a sinister nationwide conspiracy to enable people to do each others' homework with impunity). But I can hardly move a limb. I am sprawled on a torn leather sofa, with stuffing bursting out of the tears, one foot hooked over the staircase railing, the other floorbound, arms thrown backwards from the angular corners of a stretched ribcage, trying to gulp in the extra oxygen I would need to reverse the sleepward drift. "Wait," I say. "Wait..." The way of dying I seem to have chosen does not leave any room for dignity. As things go, I will wheeze more, struggle more, swear more as I fail to negotiate obstacles with my grotesque bunions and failing coordination. I will forget more and more of my eminently forgettable life, finally forgetting how and why I came to be here, in this strange place, surrounded by strange people to whom I am a defective mod co...