He couldn’t understand why they all seemed to be ignoring the truth.

They buzzed around him testifying to this theory and then the next.

Disputing it then refuting it then effusing on another.

Couldn’t they see the truth in front of their long noses?

Strange they all prided themselves on their training, their intuition and intelligence.

And yet they denied him the truth.

It infuriated him.

His petulant wife, with whom he had drawn many truces, was again one up.

He was ill, it was his fault because he didn’t follow instruction.

He was ill, but it was she who had the cross to bear.

She who’d be left with the doctors’ bills and the funeral arrangements and the grief.

Though she hadn’t admitted it, she couldn’t believe he would die.

The living don’t understand death.

He was to die.

No medicine was strong enough.

No man’s theory irrefutable enough.

He could feel time taking its toll.

Last month his hair had, he was sure, been less limp, his skin less sallow.

Now his tresses hung in grey, lifeless strips on his sweating forehead and his skin was yellow.