Imagine the scene. Six men in a ward, so there are no spare beds. Night falls, and the lights are turned out at eleven or so. One by one we all drop off to sleep. By midnight the ward is very peaceful. I can no longer stay awake, and I think I’m the last to drop off.
At two o’clock, the wind section is in full flow. Five men all snoring in unison. It is uncanny how synchronized the breathing is. Everyone breathes in — snort — and breathes out — whistle. In — out — in — out. But if that was all it was this would be a very dull orchestration. One of the wind section drops out in order to add a plaintive vocal part. He calls for a nurse. It is clear he is in pain.
The nurse’s feet tap-tap-tap a percussion accompaniment to the night’s increasingly complex orchestration. More percussion comes, slightly syncopated, as a second nurse, and then a doctor all enter to play their parts at the bed of the man in pain. Eventually their ministrations have the desired effect, and the vocal part modulates from anguish to comfort. The percussion section departs. I can no longer refrain from adding my contribution to the wind section, and as I drop off again, I can hear that I am snoring in perfect unison with the rest of the ward. Peace, of a sort, returns.
It is a very ephemeral sort of peace. The morning arrives, and with it comes the morning shift, one of whom is a fresh air fiend. The doors at the end of the ward are flung open, and the breeze blows away all remnants of the peaceful harmonization. It might have been a dream, but I know it wasn’t. I was there. I played my part.
{ 10 } Comments
Wow.
Just.. plain.. wow.
That is a remarkable and lovely piece of writing, Chris. Thank you!
@Catherine, thank you so much. I’m glad you liked it.
Chris – great story and great piece of writing. Focused and sticky :).
Cheers
Mike
@Mike, from you, that comment means a great deal to me. Thank you.
I was also impressed by your piece of writing… which drugs are you on again? 😉
I find snoring rather annoying, and it is lovely that you have been able to write such good prose on such a subject! Last night I tried to find R’s snoring musical but failed…!
In that case, I recommend a sharp elbow! But don’t tell him I said so…
Hee, thanks for responding on my blog!
Hope the current bout of nausea passes soon.
My anti-sickness meds have been tweaked, and I’ve been … er … reminded to eat little and often. I forgot that bit, so I’m feeling a little shame-faced right about now.
Don’t you just love the “incoming links” feature on the (WordPress) blog’s admin page? Does LJ have that?
Just a line to let you know that this piece above has been water-cooler conversation 🙂 sorry to hear about yesterday – hope you bounce back soonest
Yours
N
I’ve already bounced back as good as ever.
Thanks for letting me know. It seems this piece generated more interest than I expected. It was just a bit of whimsy on my part, but others seem to have found more than that in it. Strange. Nice, but strange.