Blue, Blue, Electric Blue

It isn't hard. It's much, much worse. Worse than you could ever imagine. It's not exactly black, at least not what I remember black being like. It's not exactly silence, either. More the absence of sound, vibration. It's still. So am I.

Smells pass by the bed, some are stronger and I sense it whenever someone enters the room, if that's what it is. I've never seen it. The bed is an assumption made for my sanity, of course. They could have hung me upside down on a cross. How would I know? Occasionally I smell turmeric, cumin and a faint hint of oil of patchouli. The nurse I have invented for this smell is very beautiful. It could just as easily be a Mancunian orderly with a taste for Indian food and a disturbing choice of after-shave. The point is, I don't know, how can I know?

I feel like one of Dali's giant noses.

The last thing I remember seeing was the girl stepping off the pavement. Perhaps I didn't hit her. I can't help wishing I had. It must have been something else the car hit. It doesn't matter now.

Am I asleep? Am I dreaming? Am I alive? I am sentient. Descartes is my man. Is he the doctors' though? Assuming, I am, in fact, in a coma. What if all this thinking (and olfactory stimulation) doesn't show up on the brain scan. No brain-stem activity. Persistent vegetative state. 'Pull the plug, dear boy, this one is cauliflower.' At least I won't hear them say it.

I belong to Glasgow. My lucky number must be 3 on the scale.

Of course, they'd need my wife's permission. If she's still my wife. Was the accident yesterday or decades ago?

Another song echoes in my head. I hear the memory of a tune. Memories are all I can hear. The words repeat over and over... 'Blue, blue, electric blue...' That's not the part I like best though. That's right...

'Waiting for the gift of sound and vision.'