Fever Diary – 12th December 20—
I ran with the
lions for almost a week and can remember little except the feel of fur beneath
my fingers as I clutched desperately at their manes. Eventually I became aware
of the low babble of a thousand conversations mixed with the drone of helicopters
and indecipherable megaphone messages.
There was an odd taste in my mouth and I struggled to open my eyes, the
effort fading with each attempt until finally they flickered open of their own
accord and I tried to focus on a bright square of whiteness ahead of me. I
could still feel the lion’s mane beneath the fingers of my right hand as I
tried to bring the shadows and stark brightness into balance. Someone touched
my head and breathed close to my ear. I smelt Sonia’s perfume as a woman’s
voice said quietly, ‘He’s awake.’
I turned my head
to the right and was elated to see Sonia looming over me, her face concerned at
first, and then smiling as I started to take in my surroundings. I tried to
touch her cheek with my left hand but found it was restricted by a canula taped
to a vein. Glancing down at my right hand, I found it was knotted in the fur of
a black dog standing docilely beside my bed. I wondered why the nurse hadn’t
closed the curtains on the window as the light was shining right into my eyes.
I wondered why the walls of the ward seemed to shiver slightly and it was some
moments before I noticed that the window had no frame and that the scene beyond
was a snow covered field, as if the meadow behind Barnhill had been uprooted
and placed in Gower Street, just below the private wards of the Rosenheim
building.
‘He’s definitely
awake. Eric’s awake.’
Then I heard
another, more guttural and familiar voice. A voice from my dreams, irritable
and sulky.
‘Jorge. You mean
Jorge is awake.’
I tried to sit
up and found Pedro’s hand on my shoulder. Pedro from the AW. Impossible Pedro
who didn’t exist and next to him, not Sonia, but impossible Emily.
Behind them, his
lanky form draped across a collapsible canvas chair was Scratch who said
languidly, his tanned face splitting into a broad smile, ‘George. George is
awake’.
He turned to the
open side of the tent and shouted out into the snow, ‘George is awake. He’s
awake!’ The call was taken up by voices outside and was repeated like a
thousand echoes in a deep canyon. I realised then that I had woken once again
in the AW and part of me was filled with sorrow. Then I saw Emily’s relieved
expression and she looked so happy that I was instantly calmed and accepting.
Whatever this was, she was here with me and that seemed to be all that
mattered.
Gently I grasped
Pedro’s hand and levered myself up to a sitting position. A young man with
curious arm tattoos passed me a beaker of water and I gulped it down, my throat
raw and tender.
As details began
to emerge from the murk around me, I realised that I was in a large tent and
that heads were appearing round the open flap as people wrapped in colourful
winter clothing gathered around to stare at me. Some of them were snapping vids
on their MC’s and as I turned away to look behind Emily, I noticed a
middle-aged man wearing a safari jacket training a sophisticated looking camera
on me. I am in their eye again.
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