Rays of the sunrise crested above the white lacquer windowsill, I could almost see past it, but my adjustable bed was far too low, so my eyes glanced over to the clock on the wall. Five o’clock, another two hours until the day staff arrived; being totally paralysed, that meant I only had two hours left of laying in my own waste.
It was Tuesday. That meant it was fish pie night. I hated fish pie. Liked it even less after it had been blended into a mush and spoon-fed to me. I barely had any control of my mouth so it took about an hour for me to slurp and choke it down. I hoped Shereen wasn’t feeding me today. She doesn’t look up from her phone and she always seems to be in a rush so if the fishy mush is too hot she’ll just burn me with it for a good while.
I feared one day I might actually miss being burned with fish mush on a Tuesday. I’d heard the care coordinator talking about how it might be easier to fit me with a Nasogastric Feeding Tube. A tube that was fed from my nostril through my throat and directly into my stomach. I wondered who that would be easier for, me or them?
No one ever talked to me about what my future held. They assumed that because the lights were off no one was home. When they discussed my care over my bed I felt like an old Rover from 1989, sitting in the garage; with two mechanics discussing whether to replace my radiator one final time or to just throw me in the canal and be done with it. Whatever would be easier.
‘Replace Adam’s pad’, ‘drain Adam’s catheter’ or ‘wheel Adam’s bed over to the sunroom.’ Drain Adam’s motor oil. It’s funny, when my care workers said my name, it sounded more in the abstract rather than like they were talking to an actual person. I wondered if confronting the fact that I’m a person made it harder for them to do their jobs. Like I’m just a very grim reminder of what actually constitutes a quality of life?
Life without life, maybe?
Raymond from waking watch came into my room to do his final rounds before the day staff took over. I liked Raymond. He was a big African fella. He was deeply religious and was always singing colourful hymns through the night. I think he believed every life was sacred so he talked to me a lot. It was nice knowing someone believed I was still in here.
I knew more about Raymond’s family than even my own, they’d stopped visiting years ago, it made them too sad. I knew his sister was getting married to a man, Gareth, who he didn’t really like but he knew his sister did and Gareth seemed to treat her right so he was keeping quiet about it. I knew Raymond’s twin daughters had just joined the Catholic High School and he wasn’t happy about the dress code. Costs too much and the skirts were too short, he told me late one night between prayers.
I wasn’t religious, but I appreciated Raymond talking to me and praying for me like most couldn’t even imagine.
‘What’s happening Mr Adam,’ Raymond sighed, smiling and rubbing his eyes before he pulled open the blinds. ‘We’ve got a good day ahead today. I’m gonna go home, crack a Guinness and fall asleep until about three. Then I’m driving Gram Gram to her Jesus Study Group before I pick up the twins from St Bartleby’s. My famous thai green curry for dinner then I’ll be back here to hear all about your day my man.’ His manner of speaking was musical and booming with a heavy Nigerian inflection.
I’d tell Raymond I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go surfing or hiking today, with the weather as nice as it was, if I could. I had a feeling Raymond would like that sort of banter. Instead, I dribbled and moaned a bit, drawing all my strength to rock my head gently back and forth.
‘That’s right Mr Adam, that’s right.’ Raymond sniffed. ‘We best get you cleaned Mr Adam before Miss Heasham gets in. She’ll have my head if she finds you like this. Got my performance review coming up.’
I used to be a rugby player, built pretty well. But when muscles don’t get used they just sort of waste away. If you can think of that Indian holy man who has held his arm raised high to God for the past twenty seven years, and see how his arm has morphed into some rupengent calcified length of bone and wastage, like an old stick found in a dry forest. Well, that’s an example of how the human body is essentially like: “You’re not using these muscles?? Fuck it then, I won’t bother keeping it around either.’
So it didn’t take much for Raymond to lift me into the tub with his strong arms to hose me down and clean away my waste. Raymond liked to make jokes as he worked. It made me feel slightly better about the humiliation of it all. Slightly.
‘Miss Heasham’s cottage pie last night then huh, Mr Adam? I don’t know if it looks better coming out than going in, ha!’ Raymond boomed as he replaced my pads and got me dried and dressed. ‘She should stick to the office rather than the kitchen, that’s for sure. Woman wouldn’t know her way round a spice rack if you gave her a map…’
Raymond lifted me back into my bed and wheeled me over to my radio. He shouldn’t do that, I knew, lift me like that. It was meant to be bad for his back and there were hoists. But he said it saved him from paying for a gym membership so he didn’t mind. Joked that he lifted for Jesus…And in his words, ‘so I can rock the wife’s world the way she likes after she’s had some wines ha!’ He’d do it when no one else was around to tell him off. I didn’t mind so much, it felt nice to be held.
Raymond’s shift was over so he turned the radio over to BBC One News and left saying: ‘Inabit Mr Adam, take it easy.’ I appreciated that. Most people assumed feeble bodied people had feeble minds too. New starters or agency staff would often put CBBC or Nickelodeon on the TV like we were children. Listening to the news in the morning was one of my favourite parts of the day. Reminded me the whole world was still out there and I could maybe imagine that I was still part of it.
I didn’t mind SpongeBob though.
Handover between the day staff and the night staff always seemed to be a time of high anxiety for many of the other residents here. The ones with the ability to express their feelings beyond moans and drooling anyway.
Like any residential place of work there are favourites amongst the staff for the residents. It’s just the residents here never really learned the ability to hide their displeasure when they got put with someone they didn’t want.
It always seemed to be a bit of a flavour of the month thing as well. Like when new starter staff member, Lucy Kettering, purchased a muffin for someone, she’d be in that person’s good graces for a while and the other residents thought that if they got her also, they might get an extra muffin too.
Of course I knew that Lucy would have had a review meeting over that. Secretly buying food for a resident and not the others has been the cause of more than a few incidents. But she was a new starter and didn’t know any better. She wouldn’t do it again. I think many new starters had a ‘let them eat cake’ mentality and I didn’t really disagree, what else did we have to live for, after all?
But I wasn’t able to voice my displeasure over whoever got saddled with me, so as I lay waiting I felt the sun warm my face and thought back to one barbeque, three years ago now, I think?
We had just finished a game of Rugby where me and Carl Tanner had just scored the winning try. I was number eight and he was the left wing. With seconds to go until the whistle the ball got blasted into my stomach and I immediately powered forward. I was in the zone. I smashed through the line of the other team, The Kingsbridge Badgers, like they were a bunch of drunken anorexic schoolgirls.
I thought I’d cleared them but a straggler held on. I looked down to see their left wing, a short stocky Indian guy who I could tell was not the sort to let go. I briefly had a moment where I saw myself booting him in the face with my cleats. But I exercised some self restraint, not an easy thing to do when you’re in the zone.
I decided to go down like a gentleman but not before I spun the ball half the width of the field like a rocket to Carl Tanner who was already sprinting to intercept it. He saw my play, what needed to be done and where he needed to be to score the try.
Like a magnet was in his chest he connected to the ball and he caught it and tucked it tight before he sprinted off like a leaping gazelle down the rest of the pitch with the try line in sight. The Kingsbridge team didn’t stand a chance.
I never saw the try, before I knew what was happening the Kingsbridge number eight had dived to assist their left wing with his tackle of me. I’d seen their number eight, I’d marked him. He must have been about 6ft4 and weighed 300lb. It seemed the only tackle he could manage on me was the one around my neck.
Blackness.
I awoke on my back with the entire two teams surrounding me, the ref and both coaches crouched over me looking concerned. ‘You alright mate?’ One of them said.
‘Did we win?’ I asked blearily.
‘You did, but that’s not important, does it hurt anywhere?’ The ref looked very, very concerned.
‘Right as rain then,’ I replied, sitting and cracking my neck, still with a banging headache mind. But you had to put on a show for the lads unless you didn’t mind being called a woman from here on out. Sexist and stupid, I know, but I was at that foolish age where sexism was funny.
My team cheered but the Kingsbridge Number Eight and Left Wing pulled me up with one hand to each of mine. They both sheepishly went to shake my hand to say no hard feelings, which there really wasn’t. It was part of the game after all.
After the game me and the lads decided to go round to Carl Tanner’s house for a barbeque and some cold ones. We were all only in our early twenties so being a bit skint it was always cheaper to get a whole crate for the price of two pints down the pub and sit in someone’s garden if it was nice enough.
We went round to Carl’s most of the time. He had the luxury of having by far the nicest garden, not to mention parents that were often away. Not that we didn’t like them, it was just always a bit more relaxing when the actual owners of the house weren’t there when we cracked more than a few after a game.
‘Morning Adam!’ I heard a voice come from behind me, obviously I was unable to turn around and actually look who it was. But seeing as it sounded like a voice that had smoked a thousand cigarettes before breakfast, I knew it was Jean. I didn’t mind Jean. She never did anything actively cruel to me but she did make the mistake of assuming that even if someone remained in this shitting, pissing flesh prison, they were brain-dead too.
I didn’t bother trying to moan a reply. It would only perpetuate her belief that I was a simpleton.
‘Well it looks like Raymond’s already given you a bath, judging by his notes,” Jean hummed to herself musically which sounded peculiar with her gravelly voice. ‘So I guess all that’s left to decide is breakfast.’ I heard the squeaky wheels of the hoist being moved over to my bed and Jean moved me into my chair. I was sad to be out of the warm sun again.
Jean held out a pot of applesauce in one hand, and a pot of mashed banana in the other. I gestured with my eyes for the applesauce, though I felt a bit of guilt when I did. Really, I should have had the banana, to make the staff’s job a bit easier with my incontinence when it came later.
As Jean spoon fed the wet applesauce to me slowly I thought back to the barbeque after the Kingsbridge Badgers game in Carl Tanner’s garden. When you’re a rugby player there seems to be a competition amongst the lads to eat the most meat possible.
I purchased an entire steak, grilled it medium rare and then cut it into strips and placed the strips into a half baguette, topped with mustard, lettuce and that plastic american cheese. Washed down with the best part of a crate of ice cold Coronas with wedges of lime in.
After a morning of getting smashed around a field it all hit the spot just right. Some of the other lads made burgers that looked like the ones Shaggy and Scooby Doo made. Way too tall to be eaten without unhinging your jaw like an angry pitbull. All show and zero practicality I thought.
As the lads were getting into a heated discussion about what the greatest movie trilogy of all time was, the Star Wars original trilogy or Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, I was about to interject in favour of the latter, but I felt my phone buzz.
It was Katie. After pining for her for years she’d finally agreed to go out with me. We’d been seeing each other for two months and we’d been having sex for one so we were still in that animalistic phase of exploring each other’s little kinks and turn-ons. She was cute and funny. Hazel coloured hair and big expressive eyes. She had that girl next door look for sure.
She had a little mouth and small hands too which was always good for the ego.
She’d sent me a meme of a grumpy looking frog sheltering under a leaf in the rain inscribed with: ‘What’s it’s like to be a bus wanker in October.’ It was cute and it made me laugh because October was six months away.
One of the lads noticed and said: ‘That Katie again? Texting you all about her sensual and earthly desires?’
‘You mean like a potato?’ Someone else chirped up.
‘Sod off,’ I said laughing, and then my phone buzzed again. ‘She says she and her mates are bored. Reckon they can come round here, Carl?’
I knew Carl had said yes, but I was trying to remember how he said it. Something about if they were as hot as Katie is it wouldn’t be a problem. But I got distracted by Jean wheeling me through the residential home. Someone was shrieking whilst they got held down by three members of staff applying Team Teach. Or at least that’s what their report would claim later anyway.
Jean wheeled me the other way quickly. It was common practice to hide incidents from other residents. They often spiralled and made the others anxious.
I didn’t really care, but it made the others who lived here quite upset. They lived so deeply in their own worlds that when another invaded it, they simply couldn’t process the incursion.
When the girls came they brought with them cheap wine and cheaper vodka. It burned something terrible but it went to our heads quickly. In a blur the night turned darker, the fire burned brighter and our bottles drained emptier.
I was good at holding my drink, I always had been. Probably why I remembered what happened next far clearer than anyone else had. Most of them had headed home, but with the win of the game present on my mind, the buzz of the alcohol swishing in my stomach and warming my head; Katie’s drunken and sleepy self nuzzling her hair into my shoulder as she happily purred, I was more than happy to stay into the small hours of the morning. Her hair smelled of a coconut conditioner.
It was me, Carl and Harry Stibbons. Me and Carl with a girl each sleeping next to us, Harry by himself but he didn’t seem to mind. He was one of those guys who was always content being at a party to get considerably sloshed up and talk rubbish around a fire. He never gave the opposite sex much attention, but it wasn’t like he gave the same-sex much attention either if he was that way inclined. Didn’t bother the rest of us either way but Harry sure did like to keep his private life private.
Katie stretched both of her porcelain legs across my own. They were long and she was wearing comically short shorts. But it was getting cold so she’d grabbed my three sizes too big for her North Face hoodie from somewhere and was cocooning herself into it as she gently dozed. I absently rubbed my hands up and down her smooth legs, meaning to both comfort her as she slept and warm her up with the friction.
When the night was over, probably in half an hour or so, I’d wake her with a kiss and we’d both call a taxi back to my parent’s house. They were pretty liberal so they let us sleep in my room. Better to do it under their roof rather than a bus station they always said, ‘so long as we were safe’. Even subtly left condoms in my room when I was younger with my first girlfriend.
Jean pulled me from the memory and from my chair to fit me to another hoist. So she began the methodical process of working my limbs upwards like I was riding an invisible bicycle upside down. There’d be no bedsores for me. Wouldn’t want them to get in the way of my burgeoning athletic career of course. Before the thing that put me here had happened, I’d once cycled five hundred miles one summer around the North Coast 500 in the Scottish Highlands. Wild camping every night on some mountain road sleeping below the stars.
I tried to go back to the night of the barbeque whilst Jean absently worked my barely muscled limbs. I don’t know if it was the fact that she had placed her phone on my chest so she could watch ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ as she went through the motions, but I sensed her heart wasn’t really in it.
I told myself that if my bedsores led to an infection and I needed a limb amputated because of Jean’s attitude, I’d shit myself every time she was placed with me on shift. Not that I had any control of that anyway, but I’d stop feeling bad about it at least.
Before I knew it I was sitting back around that firepit late one night in Carl Tanner’s garden. We’d moved from beer to whisky. On the rocks of course. No twenty something year old genuinely liked cheap whisky straight, not unless they were trying to be someone they weren’t.
Harry Stibbons was talking some nonsense about language. How odd it was that we were able to convey complex ideas and concepts through manipulating the way we excell air from our mouths. It sounded like he’d just taken his first philosophy module at University and wanted to sound smarter than he really was. But that was Harry all over.
Me and Carl shared a look thinking the same thing, ‘let’s get Harry off this track, it’s a real downer.’ Carl’s eyes wandered to the corner of my bench before spotting something and loudly interrupted Harry saying: “Hey Adam,” he caught my eye and pointed at a long black slug oozing its way between my legs, “I’ll refill your glass if you eat that slug.”
I could refill my own glass, but I was nicely buzzed and feeling on top of the world. Why not? I thought. It was just a slug, they ate them in France all the time. I shrugged, treating it like the small deal I believed it to be, and picked the slug up. It protested somewhat by sticking to the concrete ground, but it gave up quickly between my fingers. It felt like a giant glob of snot being pulled from a giant nostril.
I plopped it in my mouth, grimaced and swallowed, holding my glass out for Carl to fill as he and Harry Stibbons laughed at what I’d just done.
That night was the last night I’d ever sleep with Katie. Sleep with anyone ever again for that matter.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that slug carried an infection of rat lung. It took a few days but eventually my brain started shutting down my motor neurone control alongside the part that kept me from going into painful and deep seizures.
My mum cried as the doctor told us. By that point I couldn’t react beyond moaning and drooling into my shirt. My dad just stared out of a window, I couldn’t see his face, he seemed fixated on a child’s play park outside. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the wind push the empty swing gently as though an invisible somber child swung on it. I never found out what he was thinking at that moment, but it couldn’t have been good.
Jean readied me for bed and Raymond came in and read over her notes from the day. Pretty standard. Adam drooled. Adam had a small epileptic fit. Adam nearly choked on his food. Adam was unable to scratch his own bedsores. Adam wet his pants and it took two hours before anyone even noticed. Adam got an erection thinking about Katie but it mocked him because he knew there was nothing he’d ever be able to do with it.
That’s the problem when a single incident changes your entire life. You replay it over and over again. Wishing you had done something, anything, just slightly differently. A trip to the toilet, a beer instead of a whisky. Calling the night when it was over rather than endure to see its final end. Anything.
But I couldn’t. So I set myself to sleep, knowing the next day would bring the exact same. I’d wake up covered in my own shit, and get to replaying the barbecue at Carl Tanner’s house over and over again in my head until finally, I ate slug..
I always ate the slug, because I already did and nothing was ever going to change that fact.