Here I lay, unable to sleep.

Keeping my eyes closed doesn't help. The phosphors pulsing in my vision are distracting. The twinges in my gut certainly don't help, nor does the low-grade headache. At least I'm not having another migraine. Or am I? I open my eyes to discover, yup, there are the static-y spinning triangles covering half my vision. I waited for it to finally recede.

No help for it, my neurochemistry was hopelessly compromised by blooms of neoplasm. Metastases of melanoma. Living alone, no one noticed the growing mole on my back until much too late, and while the new medications fought it off for a while it came back with a vengeance.

Life's a bitch and then you get cancer.

I closed my eyes again and tried again, futilely to sleep. It felt like hours passed. I silently debated hitting the button for the opiate drip, but that tended to make the hallucinations even worse, and I wasn't really in the much pain. The doctors were just being nice to the dying young man.

Even so, the pretty colors behind my eyelids shone on, refusing to allow me to rest, the tiny torso pokes prodding, and I realized my bladder was full.

Sighing, I pressed the button to summon the attendant. I'd already fallen a couple times trying to take myself on a relief mission and was told I should summon help from the put-upon staff here at this supposedly highly-rated hospice. Despite the reviews, much like many other industries the employees were overworked and underpaid and unhappy to be distracted from their distractions to have to assist their charges. I'd been a service worker once upon a time and sympathized, but, well, it wasn't going to drain itself.

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I waited patiently. Then I waited impatiently. I rang a second time, and waited again. And decided not to ring thrice.

I could at least still manage to drop the side guard from my bed, and swung my legs over the edge, levering myself up. I then sat for a few seconds, bladder unpleasantly tight, because I already knew jumping out of bed would result in being light-headed and falling over. A count of five and I stood up, grasping the IV stand for a bit of support. It slid on its casters and I wobbled a little.

This was already a bad night and I could tell I was worse. The subdued colors of the dark room kept shifting and the walls seemed to twist. I should have realized I was in no shape to navigate my way to the lavatory, just like a drunk should have taken a taxi, but neither of us was in any condition to cerebrate. I began walking, feeling a bit like I was on stilts. The door to the commode kept shifting side to side, I wobbled more, the IV stand pulled me stumbling sideways and I drifted towards the corner of the room, beginning to topple. My left hand met the wall and the right was heading for the corner.

Time seemed to slow as I knew my right hand should meet the corner. I saw it drawing closer. I saw my arm outstretched, hand appearing further away than the corner was. My mouth fell open as I continued to fall, rolling to the right with my hand having found no support. My right shoulder impacted the wall on the other side of the corner, my left hand slid in a way I couldn't understand and I fell -