Because nurses have to watch him, now. Because, yesterday, the Son unplugged his Machine and watched silently as his life blood was pumped to the floor. And where was his Mother? His Mother was on her way to the library, that’s where, because her Son had said, ‘Go and find a job, a life of your own,’ that’s why. She was more than halfway there when she turned and sprinted back. She doesn’t know why

I see them everywhere. You know? Not just in the hospital. Some of them are in disguise, but I can spot them. Like they have a little shiny outline round them, like in a game on a screen. They pixelate, Mum, they pixelate at me. Like: there, there, there. Shouldn’t really be here. You, you, you. Not really here. Me, me, me. Not-Dead.

‘She should be dead,’ says the Son, ‘like in nature. I mean if that baby was born in a primitive tribe she’d be dead in seconds.’‘So would lots of people,’ says the Mother. ‘So would I.’‘I would,’ says the Son. ‘Definitely.’

‘It’s a baby,’ says the Mother, crossly, ‘some-one’s baby.’

‘A Not-Dead,’ says the Son. ‘Look. Under the window.’ Mother cranes round, then stands up briefly. She sees a baby sleeping in a plastic cot. It is wearing a pink woolly hat and cardigan and has oxygen tubes in its nose.