The Opposite of Nullity

And so the process continued; I'd had some falls, short-term memory was a little diminished, so here I was. The waiting room. The overwhelming, catch-all smell of bleach. Some traduced creature wall-hugging whilst breathlessly intoning a wartime memory "please help us, please help us" Anti-psychotics had rendered the place through the cataract of watery fluorescence as I toyed with my zimmer and with a narcotic patience whistled quietly. I'm only 79? The other wraiths arrived: some family with nervous uncommitted faces peering about the facility. It would be different now. A new city. Old problems. They weren't really family, just surrogates, English speakers drafted in to make sure I understood the next part of the journey...the process; efficiently delivered prescriptions for life and the watchful eye of The State? No...the careworn fizzogs registered real empathy. I was hugged for a spell by some young woman...the mood stabilisers then kicked in before the Lithium frosting on this particular cocktail rendered me motionless. Christ, no...I was sitting at my terminal. These were flashes of someone else's present tense, or flash forward future memories? The VDU issued its deathless presence with the flickering against my already afflicted eyes. My limbs refused to move. Total paralysis, only the slight muscle-tug at the corners of my gimlet eyes. Voices were far-off white noise. Panic barely registered as the screen contained screeds of unrecognised figures. Tax returns, by the barest of insight I gathered, maybe? No... I woke on the floor again, personal nanny state alarm, issuing distress signals as motionless I saw the carpet piles dance before my opening orbs. I was chosing memories to filter as I lay waiting for aid to arrive. Doubtless a lecture about toast making at 2AM ...in the arthritic state I was becoming enveloped by this was folly, persistence in the face of the reality of...I will resist the dying of the light.