Final Sigh
We sat around his bed chatting, sometimes giggling, in hushed tones. Nana and Mum held his hand and stroked his warm, weathered arm, shiny eyed and smiling. Although the outside ward was dark, his room was still bright. And the woman next door had stopped wailing every three minutes. The night began to feel somewhat peaceful. Music played quietly from a small white radio. So quietly you had to strain to hear it over the hiss of his oxygen mask. In between chatting our eyes would rest on him, lying under his white sheet, his chest a cage of bones rising and falling slowly. His broken arm was in a white hospital sling, hiding the black colour of the bruised flesh. His other warm hand, held by Nana was bruised too, from the canular that kept being replaced each time he had pulled out. The same hand with a crooked finger, bent at the first knuckle after an operation. He was the only person we know who could point around a corner. A thin, worn body lay beneath the sheets. The frailty o