5 MARCH 2005, Page 36

Third Day

Respirators sound like trout feeding at night in some dream hatchery — no one there to listen; our subaqueous world of care is halfway blue — peaceful, unthreatening.

Spectacles pressed to the glass, our specialists walk by to look us over and seem the same until, mask-mouthed, they enter: clipboard lists distinguish the paraphernalia from the name.

We are our medication, and the machines programmed to meet an individual case more than identity now. We may have been; some may become again. We have no face to lose, to look at, but it’s pleasant here, suspense suspended, nothing to be done for the time being — time being our time won to flail for birth again and fight for air. Grey Gowrie