Mr. Rollercoaster
This man’s face! His expression…it’s the expression the passengers wear when the rollercoaster comes down from its final loop. Terror, bewilderment. Exhilaration, inexplicably. He sits with this befuddled smile as staff fuss about, transferring him into a bed on the ward’s plague side; eventually he’s snug, propped up by a mass of pillows. The urine bag attached to the bed rail is half full of blood, bright red and opaque, not a drop of actual piss.
Ten o’clock, drugs round. Ten thirty, lights out.
Now I understand Mr. Rollercoaster’s total silence when he’s awake. He’s been buffering, saving all his speech for when he’s asleep. Chattering away in a language that might be Gujarati, irritating not only because it’s midnight, not only because everyone else is dozing contentedly, but because he has both hands behind his head and a smile on his face. Stop looking so casual, you fucker! Get back on the rollercoaster! Jesus. He’s enjoying an animated one-sided conversation with someone, it’s as though he’s holding court from a hammock. Shut up! Shut the fuck up, you blood-pissing funfair ride asleep bastard!
Right. Fucker. An hour of your monologue’s more than enough. Ever heard the expression Don’t make me come over there?
