Bile stings the back of the throat like a foreign being clawing it's hot, sickly way from the larynx to the uvula. The eyes are hot and itchy. The fingers cold and restless.

Deep breath. Reflex swallow. Slow blink. Fingers begin to drum against the stiff plastic of the hospital chair in near perfect silence.

Beep.

There is anaesthetic in the air that tries valiantly to push away the sharp tang of human excrement, human tears and human sickness. It's a hospital smell and every person in the Intensive Care Unit will remember it's cloying presence for the rest of their lives. However long that might be.

Beep.

A sigh, a shift, an uncomfortable adjustment in an uncomfortable room where the man in the sterile bed lies uncomfortably and unconscious. Cold hands freeze in their spastic rhythm as red eyes are drawn to the man like moth to flame. Once upon a time those hands would have clenched -could- have clenched but there was no more dramatics or significant movements left, only a curiously heavy weight pulling every limb to the floor and a deep, deep tiredness resonating through every person sitting dully in the ICU.

Beep.

He should look small. Isn't that what people say upon seeing a bed-bound patient? They look small, fragile, like they need to be lifted from whatever ailment that plagues them by bright, healthy hands. He doesn't. He looks big. Why is he here? What could possibly ail this flaxen-haired giant? What could possibly touch him?

Beep.

The harsh whirl of air answers. The mechanical click confirms. Shouldn't that be gentler? The breath of life should sound like ocean waves or wind in a corn field, not like a scuba tank twisting noisily open and then being unceremoniously shut with a wrench. Air fills the lungs though and that's all that matters. Isn't it?

Beep.

The man's chest rises and falls with a jerk and a mechanical note of confirmation beneath the stark white sheet of the hospital. Swollen fingers rest to his sides, yellow and purple and cold. There is a blanket. The fingers and arms are now covered.

Beep.

Is that heart monitor too slow? How is his heart? He needs the invasive tube to breathe, the sharp edges of a tube to pee so does his heart need a tube to beat? What more can the sterile machines do for this man whose body is disappearing? There must be something because human hands have long since failed and all there is left are the machines.

Beep.

The sound of the man's heart is grating but needed (needed, needed, needed) and the mechanical click of his lungs is both reviled and worshiped depending on each moment. There is a stillness on the room that can't be accomplished anywhere else. The man held immobile by the sickness ravaging his body and the acid despair crushes his visitors to stone.

Beep.

There is no sleep here. There is medicine and comas but no sleep. Sometimes one of the people in the cold chairs shuts their eyes and pretends. Pretends because here there is no sleep. Eyes can look away but the man in the bed is impossible to forget. Not when ears are always listening for the