What do you mean, like something made up? The pretty nurse doesn’t take her eye off the syringe, tongue just visible against her lip, concentrating on the glass like she’s tapping for a seam of gold. Not everyone is as diligent as she. There are always rumours about how when the wards get too full the nurses start doling out air bubbles, straight to the heart and starting with the old folks first, but Bill doesn’t believe them, watches her tapping away and thinks this must be how angels appear, not in an eruption of light but in a little blue uniform with breasts and everything.
         Yes. Isn’t that what you call a story?
         All right. I know what a story is. I just didn’t get what you wanted it for.
         To pass the time. To remind me of the other world.
         The other world?
         That’s right.
         I’ve only got five minutes, and if I do it for one I should do it for everyone. So no. It has to be a no.
         But something in his eye must break her and because the matron is busy and she reckons on actually having at least eight, nine minutes before anyone will really notice what she is doing, the nurse relents and sits on the side of his bed. Okay, she says, shrugging. Her cheek is unexpectedly broken by an entire dimple that seems as impossible as a complete rainbow and suddenly, incredibly, she is involved. Bill has involved her in the business of his dying. For a minute he feels bad about this. He is no longer F3467008, and this will not help her much, even if it makes things a little better for him.
         Okay? he says.
         I said it was okay! Now shoot. What kind of story do you want?

7

  

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