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Show 138 "Paul Newman is having a birthday!" the TV news anchor is saying and suddenly I know I am doomed. It is afternoon of the next day and I have made the circuit around the nurses' station several times already, even during the noise of the day. Uneventfully, as far as startle goes, thankfully. But now, sitting in my bed and waiting for the energy to discharge the aggravated need to move, I know I am doomed and I am fairly certain it has nothing to do with Paul Newman or his birthday. The door to my room cracks open and my heart is pounding with the fact of my impending demise. "I hear you've been out!" It is Dr. Jessop and he is happy with this fact. "Let's send you home, then," he is saying, incongruously, smiling. "Let's see if you do this well at home." Even if he does not, I understand the absurdity of this possibility -1 am no more unbent now than when I came here so many weeks ago - but my wanting to leave this room, this hospital, this disease, is so much greater than any notion of logic and the absurd. Ionesco, after all, would approve. My door is finally open. |