What I’d give for a glass of water

It took five firemen or pompiers to lift me out of bed, carry me down three narrow flights of stairs and down a rocky path, then to shove me into the back of their van. When I cried out in pain the sweating firemen joked that I was a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. Henceforward they humorously addressed me as sheikh. It had to be pompiers because my legs don’t work. The educated guess is that a tumour is pressing against my spine, gradually paralysing me from the toes up. The old legs feel amputated: just colourless slabs of cold meat.

In the back of the van, I made small talk with the young fireman whose job was to prevent my sliding off the stretcher on the hairpin bends.