Between publishing (or letting loose on the public) a couple of books and starting a degree in painting, I haven’t submitted much to journals or magazines. Yesterday, a new magazine appeared; a magazine for our times called Pendemic. This piece, about the imagined experience of a woman on a ventilator, was written a few years ago but has, sadly for so many, come of age.

Back in the mists of time I was an Intensive Care nurse. Our patients were mostly ventilated either electively after open heart surgery, or as an emergency following some sort of mishap affecting their brain function, often a road accident. We didn’t know how aware they were of the goings on in the unit, but now we do. Never forget people can hear and that they’re trying to make sense of these snatches of a world beyond their stilled and silent bodies.

Bellows.