Never been closer to heaven, never been so far away

Since his coma Charles is sometimes afraid to go to sleep. He's afraid he'll never wake up. Tonight as is often the case he went to bed hours before me. He knows I'll check on him frequently, listen to his breathing, make sure he's OK. But I still have to reassure him that I'll be watching, listening.

There's no sadder site in my days now than watching him drifting off, his eyelids drooping wanting but scared to go to bed.

I was just in the bedroom listening to my little princeling's alternating inhalations and exhalations. Not that I can read the significance of them. The night his lungs were fighting for air I thought he was only snoring. I stand and listen to assure him that I did. Then I come back here and type and let the Pet Shop Boys sing to me of how much I love him. Doesn't matter what Neil Tennant is singing about. The semioticians can twist texts to serve their purposes; I can reshape songs.

I let the keyboard mirror the sickeningly sweet syrup pumping through me when I'm most deeply in love with Charles. When I don't mind sounding like a sap.

Funny isn't it? My self-image is as a half-rational person. If this clockwork universe was designed and is maintained by anyone he must be a blind idiot. But I'll let my reason abdicate its role because of a frail man several yards from where I sit.

Life is funny. And I'm a joke. Not that I'm insulting myself. Being laughable isn't an awful fate. Look at the people where you live. The bourgeois robots, the men, women and children in the slums. Open your empathy to the people living on the world's two largest continents. Being love-mad is a better life they can't afford.

So I'm not bitching. Just amused by myself. No small luxury.