Still a sigh

Michèle Cooke

Locked-in syndrome. They're developing a new technique, he told me, to translate the brain-waves of coma patients into words. Are they trying to speak, to tell us they are here, still with us?

Still wishing, wanting, living. It's not yet time to switch me off. Please let me be, a little life longer.

But whose are the words they read in the waves? Can the eager men in clean white coats get into my head? My life? Understand what even I don't know?

Words. They tell us nothing. Words don't make the story. Our lives are locked in silence. We all lose in translation.