FROM THE HEART

Every day, whatever day it is, I don't know what day it is or even if it's day but that's OK, ...I live by night. Or at least, it's dark here whatever the time, all the time because there is no time. 

One day I just slipped off to this ...wherever it is. I can't find my way back and I'm not sure there is a way back. Roll me off my back. Take the tubes out. Turn me in the bed. Nurse my sores. Put the tubes back.

No one knows what happened. I simply ceased to function. They can't switch me off because they're still getting readings. The heart monitor is scratching out words. Seeming non sequiturs. Random statements from a realmless location or just word association via catatonic dissociation.

My loved ones bring fresh flowers and take away the dead ones. They never brought me flowers when I was speaking and moving. They look at the monitor to see if I've left another of what they jokingly call 'the tweets'. They peer at the screen and something is there. Something for them to puzzle over and misinterpret or maybe ignore. It was the same when I used talk. I made as little sense to them as I did to myself but words came out, nevertheless.

(Does it matter if you are understood, as long as it's understood that you are loved?)

They read aloud, slowly and clearly.

'The problem with animals is that there are people. The problem with people is that they're people.'

What could that mean? They haven't a clue. Is it a joke or an insult, maybe both? They're nonplussed and I would be too if I was in any condition to know that I had spoken. But I did say something and if it's on the monitor then it came from the heart.