I stood in the long silence

With almost Kafkaesque anticipation

A long suffocating silence

Shrouded in a blanket of quiet and guilt

Where time moves so very slowly

It was a moment spread over a series of moments

Interjected in the distance by shouts and screams

Men women children crying out

Words climbing over one another

One above the rest

For god’s sake help

I asked myself why for god’s sake

Without reaching any conclusion

But in it crept

In yawning gaps between the silence

A silence which was neither black or white

Just a strange kind of grey

Just me and a light bulb swinging free

Being switched off and on in the darkness

Off and on without any rhythm or pattern

Just a light on the end of a twisted strangled cord

Back and forth back and forth

A raw naked bulb both harsh and soft

No noise between the screams

Just a hypnotic back and forth

Until I became dizzy and closed my eyes to get steady

But it was the same old words over and over

What to do what to do

The words puncture the bubble loud in my ear

Well, what’s your answer?

The answer hits me like a sledgehammer

A cold wet flannel

Breaking through the sweat and forty-eight-hour tiredness

My thoughts swimming back up to the surface

And with a heavy gasping breath

Take that one to theatre

That one needs an X-ray

The boy with half an arm needs blood and a smiling face

And more…

And I was back in the room among the bleeding and the dying

Desperate for sleeping but telling myself sleeping

Eating fear anger and weeping can all wait

There was a queue for which none would take precedent

But not now

They would all have to wait until after

After the

Long

Tall

Silence