Occupied City by David Peace

can rinse out your mouths now …’
    – and now I see everyone rushing for the sink, for the tap, for the water, and now I am rushing for the sink, for the tap, for the water, and now I see people falling to the floor, and now I see Miss Akiyama lying on the floor, and now I am trying to reach her but I need the sink, the tap, the water, and now I am thinking I’ll get to the sink, to the tap, to the water, then I’ll come back to Miss Akiyama, people coughing, people retching, people vomiting, and now I can feel people pushing past me, people clambering over me to get to the sink, to the tap, to the water and now I am drinking and drinking and drinking, but now the light is fading and fading and fading, now the light is leaving us, leaving us here, here in the Occupied City, and now I feel a grey-ness coming and into the grey-ness,
    I am falling, I am falling, I am falling,
    I am falling, I am falling,
    I am falling,
    into the grey-ness, I am falling,
    falling and falling away,
    away from the light,
    from the Occupied City, towards a grey place,
    a place that is no place. But then the light
    grips me, it holds me tight, tight,
    tight, it pulls me back
    Down the bank’s corridors, into the bank’s
genkan. Help me!
Through the doors, into the street
. On my hands and on my knees, I crawl through the Occupied City.
Into the light, into the sleet
. Help me, I say.
She is drunk, she is mad
. In the mud and in the sleet, on my hands and on my knees, in the Occupied City.
Help me …
    ‘Please help me!’
    IN THE OCCUPIED CITY, I hear boots in the mud, I hear sirens in the sky. But I am falling again. In the Occupied City, people are asking me my name. I am still falling. In the Occupied City, I do not know my name. For I am falling. In the Occupied City, I am moving. I am falling. In the Occupied City, I am in a white room. But I am still falling. In the Occupied City, people keep asking me my name. In the Occupied City, I do not know my name. For I am falling. In the Occupied City, people are asking me what happened. I am still falling. In the Occupied City, I do not know what happened.
    And then I stop. I stop falling
    IN THE OCCUPIED CITY, a young woman. Help me. On her hands and on her knees, she crawls through the Occupied City. Help me, she says. In the mud and in the sleet, on her hands and on her knees, in the Occupied City
.
    Please help me
    IN THE OCCUPIED CITY, nuns are sticking a hose down my throat, doctors are pumping my stomach, and I am coughing and I am retching, fluid and bile, rambling and ranting. But I can speak again. And I am talking now. Men sat beside my bed. Men stood beside my bed. Men holding my hand. Men whispering in my ear.
    And I am talking, talking to the men beside my bed. The men who are holding my hand, holding it tight, tight, tight.
    ‘The drink,’ I whisper. ‘The drink …’
    ‘But what did you eat?’ they ask.
    ‘It was the drink. The drink …’
    ‘What did you drink?’
    ‘It was medicine …’
    ‘A medicine?’
    ‘A doctor …’
    ‘What doctor?’
    ‘Dysentery …’
    The men beside my bed let go of my hand. The men beside my bed stand up now. The men beside my bed say, ‘This is not a case of food poisoning, Detectives.’
    And now the men beside my bed leave, shouting, ‘This is a case of murder! Of robbery …’
    And then the men are gone and I am alone, in the white room, I am alone again, in the Occupied City.
    And I am afraid.
    I am scared.
    That night, that dream, IN THE OCCUPIED CITY, that night, for the first time, that dream: I AM THE SURVIVOR
    But of course I know: only through luck
    Have I survived so many friends.
    But night after night
    In dream after
    Dream
    I hear these friends saying of me: ‘Those who survive are stronger.’ And I wake and I hate myself
    I hate myself
    In a white room, I wake again. It is a hospital. There are nuns and there are nurses and there are doctors. They are giving me drugs. They are giving me medicines. But I am