"Every fortnight now the hanged man's family came to have this communion with him - which no doubt explained their composure: they were believers. There was a simple message for each child - help Mummy, be good at school; and each child waited for his or her message; and became grave when the message came. What memories they would retain of these visits!"
- V.S. Naipaul
The Enigma of Arrival

Wednesday
Memories, at least they had that much to take away. There is the decency of receiving in that scene, decency my messages were not given. The birds that perched on my oak tree have gone quiet, or I would have claimed them as the only decent creature I know.

In my solitude there is one question that lingers, that binds me to this bedridden existence. In the morning, which pills do I take? There is the orange thin bottle with the white cap and the white fat bottle with the orange cap. When I wake up in the morning my body instinctively lifts a quivering skeletal hand towards the orange bottle. My head is violently lifted away by a persistent force that removes me of any clarity. So I rely on feel, the feel of the orange thin bottle. My fingers clasp the bottle tightly, the jagged grooves of the plastic providing comfort like an old cherished childhood toy. I take the pill and wait, wait for a restoration that lately never comes. That's when I look at the white fat bottle, so squat, plump, and cheery. Why would it not share some of that cheer with me?

I'm going to do it. I need cheer in my life. I need something to battle the idleness. Idleness will kill me well before my lungs collapse.

Collapse - That word brings such theatrics to my mind. A building collapsing, slowly at first, then accelerating into billowing dust. A man collapsing, bursting with joy upon arriving from a distant journey and into the embraced of loved ones. An empire collapsing, infected and diseased from the inside yet finally submitting to the health and prosperity of the outside. Are these grand visions a precursor to the collapse that my lungs will undertake on the quiet stage of my dying body? I think I'd rather not be in the audience for that.

I ask for this simple message to be received. Let this new set of pills lead me to a more simple solution.