He was going to die anyway

He was memorable and yet I cannot remember much about him. Mid-30s, perhaps, slim, unkempt with a somewhat haunted look about him, sitting up in his hospital bed wearing pyjamas, staring ahead. Whereas other patients on the ward had visitors, nurses busying themselves around their beds, this man seemed to have an invisible barrier around him, which was rarely crossed. He was the man who had drunk paraquat and was going to die in a few days.

He did not …