Lethal Injection

‘While you’re waiting we can take your height and weight, and your blood pressure.’

I’ve just received the flu vax.  No sensation, no queasiness, as usual, and a wait of twenty minutes out by reception seems a bit pointless.

‘Well, my height won’t have changed.’  For some reason I’m feeling grumpy.

‘We don’t actually have your height on our records.’  Of course -  I’ve only attended this Health Centre for a couple of years.  The nurse’s voice hints that patients ought not to query things.  I ignore it.  She has a smile on, impersonal.  I get the impression that if it was within her jurisdiction she would prefer to give me a lethal injection rather than a vaccination. 

Grumpy.  I need to shake off something: nerves, an odd having-my-grave-walked-over sensation.  The night before, driving to a rehearsal for a play, I breathed in while eating a hard-boiled sweet.  The sweet stayed in my cheek, but some combination of mucus and saliva glued across my windpipe.  I lost the ability to draw breath.  I pulled over.  I thought how strange it would be to be found in a car, sitting upright, not breathing, eyes wide open.  I thought about how annoyed the people at the rehearsal would be at my unexplained absence.  I realised I didn’t have my cellphone on me, and even if I had had, trying to breathe was more important than making a final call.  I thought: this is a horrible way to die.

My brain fiddled with these thoughts, my chest cracked open in an attempt to find air.  No air.  Out of my experience.  

Cough!  Cough!

I forced myself to cough.  The mucus mixture broke.   Life returned to a post-possible-death normality.   

I don’t need a lethal injection.  I can die on my own, quite comfortably, thanks.