I woke up one night; I couldn’t breathe.
Taste of blood in my mouth, my lung clawing out.
I opened the thin windows, tried to jam my face through it.
Blue inhaler.
Red inhaler.
Round and round.
I was gasping, sweating.
Give me oxygen.
Give me life.
I felt like a fish on the pier floor:
Desperate,
gasping,
dying.
I opened the back doors.
The cold air held me.
I breathed as deeply as I could.
I coughed,
I spluttered.
I thought about them finding me in the back garden.
I didn’t know what to do.
Keep breathing.
Keep breathing.
But slowly the coughing eased,
And I could breathe again.
Three hours later,
The coughing stopped.
I slept for a couple of hours and went to work.
© Paul Andrew Sneddon
