Note No. 11

I must die. But must I die groaning? I must be
imprisoned. But must I whine as well? I must suffer
exile. Can any one then hinder me from going with a
smile, and a good courage, and at peace?

– ARRIAN, THE DISCOURSES OF EPICTETUS

July 2020

Bongi! Nadine! I am ephemeral.

Yes, I have it on the impeccable authority of the apparatchiks of the NHS of the St Mary’s Hospital of Paddington, with its façade of musty stone, dark arches and red brick redolent of Gothicness, churchiness and death. I write this on a bench in a corridor, clumsy fingers penning across my notebook. I feel this corridor should be dark – a dank tunnel to oblivion – but it is light-buzzed from the strips above, shimmying off white walls and acid green tiling.

I write now to keep my eyes from the beckoning tunnel, but I am disturbed by the rumble of passing gurneys – sick ones on their way to theatre, their pre-medded eyes displaying a pale trepidation; and the ones returning from the slicing, eyes of doped surprise at consciousness returned.

The pain in the gut will not subside. I clutch at it, fists pressed in, as one would jab a finger into a toothache, but there is no relief. No crescendo and diminuendo. Just a constant clutch of corporality, of endedness.

The oncologist, who waits down the tunnel for my time, is young. She is a dark beauty. She exudes the opposite of what I have become, am becoming, am to become. She speaks quietly. Talks of hope, of options. She, with a white smile against dark lips, bats off the ‘how long’ question.

Bongi! Nadine! You are all that is left of what I love, of what I need now. Who else is there? Who will care? Parents? Gone. Siblings? None. Friends? None here but nodding acquaintances in the passages of my bedsit, in the pub, the musty librarian who fathoms my tastes. And at home? Friends? None, only comrades. But comrades, comradeship, have dissipated into the obscure interstices of survival, disappointment, dread.