I brought a new book of stories to read you. On the contents page there is a list of authors, with brackets beside the names. The year they were born, the year they died. And their life, signified by a dash. For the ones who are still alive there is just the birth-year and the dash. But the distance between the brackets is the same; after the dash there is a space where, if you wanted to, you could fill in the death-year. That little hyphen, striking horizontally left to right, as if through time, is the same length for everyone, unlike real lives. For our lines, there's only been a little overlap. Two lines of the same length overlapping, so the un-overlapping part is the same length for both of us. Now that you're really dying, I wonder who you might've been before me and who I might be after you.

'It's good to see you,' you say, under the coma and the closed eyes. You're machine beeps at me, forever agreeing. I sit down and begin. I wonder if you can hear me. The thought of how bored you would be if you couldn't is too frightening. To be confined to yourself, confined to a room. They always called you the Outdoor Type. It's not right you had to come to the city to die. You must always be wondering about the weather back home; if there's still snow on the hills. I got so worried you were bored I brought you a radio and left it on in your room, so you wouldn't be lonely and maybe you would hear the weather forecast. The night-nurse told me off the next day. Waste of electricity, she said. If the radio wastes electricity, what are all these other machines doing?

Beep, beep it goes, drawing the same jagged picture of a mountain peak and flat valley over and over. In the absence of the radio I've started leaving things for you to smell, so the smells are with you when I can't be. Can you smell that? That's daffodils of course. I'll bring new flowers soon. Now the days are getting warmer the nurses can open your window. Sorry for the draft, but it beats air-conditioning. Maybe you can pretend the car fumes are logs on a campfire. That wet concrete is mountain granite.

I'll read you a new story now, of mountaineers. You can dream you're striding up that mountain with them. Dream that you have reached the highest summit. Do you want to come down to the concrete and the cars, to the city and these machines? If you want me to, I'll stop there. Remember, you're the Outdoor Type. You never wanted to come home, even after the mountain was climbed. If you want, we'll leave the story there. Beep mountain valley, beep mountain valley, valley, valley'¦

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