Member-only story
The Clot Thickens
A cyclical tale
Arn’s dad was dying. He would go that night.
It only took 30 minutes down the M4 for Arn to get there, but already his dad was blind and drifting in and out of consciousness. His large head and leaden hair, lay on the crisp white pillow like a beached whale.
Arn bowed over him and squeezed his hand.
‘Dad, it’s me.’
He moaned softly.
All around the hospital ward, people were coming and going. Doctors in the fast lane, all flapping white coats, and fixed expressions. A couple of junior nurses flitted randomly from bed to bed, checking monitors and looking busy.
‘You’re going home tonight, Mr Simpson,’ one was saying to someone, somewhere, in a voice that was too loud. ‘Your son will be here to pick you up.’
And there was Dad and Arn, seemingly in a separate place to all this hustle and bustle. It reminded Arn of a false awakening when he found himself in bed in the middle of a street full of cars and people rushing all around him. The only thing to do was to lie down, go back to sleep and hope to be in the right place when he opened his eyes again. Now he was here with his dad in a place neither of them wanted to be. Life and work buzzing around. And the two of them, held together in their oasis of death.
