Slow Man

suffused with shame

detestation of the lumpish

resolved not to be any trouble

Two oldsters; two old fellows in the same boat. The nurses are good, they are kind and cheery, but beneath their brisk efficiency he can detect – he is not wrong, he has seen it too often in the past – a final indifference to their fate, his

settles for the confusion

smouldering with anger

The pills he accepts are meant to blunt the pain and make him sleep, but he does not sleep. This – this strange bed, this bare room, this smell both antiseptic and faintly urinous – this is clearly no dream, it is the real thing, as real as things get.

left him concussed

to bring him up to speed

sends him a shaft of jagged white pain