I take out the headphones and listen to the heart monitor that sits on a trolley by the side of my bed. Steady, intermittent beeps tell me that I’m still alive but not for how much longer. I hold my breath and the beeps become steadily faster. It’s a stupid game but it keeps me occupied. A nurse sticks her head round the curtain at the side of my bed and tells me to stop it, so I smile at her and let out the breath I’d been holding in a long exhale. She smiles back and wags her finger at me in a humorous way. I like the nurses; they don’t judge.

My doctor told me that the only way to keep me alive was for me to be here. My doctor’s one of the good guys, one of the few people who cares if I live or die. When I tell him this he tries to distance himself from me by telling me that he’s only doing his job. I know different; he’s my only visitor. Sometimes I do get friendly with other patients but they either get well or die. Either way, they leave and rarely come back. When they do come back they usually ignore me.

Somebody spat at me once, which wasn’t very pleasant but I can understand it; they probably had their reasons. There are so many people who need my hospital bed and here am I, a comparative picture of health. They don’t know the half of it.

Dinner will be arriving soon. Every day I fill in a little card to say what I want for the next day. I may have ordered a salad for today. My dad used to call it rabbit food, usually as he was tucking in to a big fried breakfast or a huge rump steak. We had a rabbit; it was still alive when dad died.

The doctor is visiting me this afternoon so I should take a shower, wouldn’t want to be all dirty if he needs to examine me. I press the little button that calls the nurse to let her know that I’m unplugging myself. She arrives pretty quickly and, as usual, she lets me take off all the paraphernalia myself.

In the bathroom I undress. My naked body is covered in a myriad of scars. My wrists, my throat and my abdomen contain the largest most visible scar tissue, but they are all over me. Each one painful and pleasurable in equal measure. Each one remembered by date. I look over my shoulder into the mirror at a wide, but not long scar just under my shoulder blade. August 26th. That was a tricky one. I had to wedge the knife in a draw and throw myself backwards on to it. There was a lot of blood but it wasn’t really life threatening. The Police never found my attacker, hah.

I still remember the first one, July 12th. It took me so long to pluck up the courage to do it, I almost didn’t go through with it. My parents found me soaking in a bath full of water so red that it looked like I had been drained. Dad went into a panic and ranted on about how I could tell him anything and how he didn’t mind if I was homosexual. But he spat out the word homosexual as if it was causing a dirty taste in his mouth. And, anyway, I’m not gay.

I turn around and look in the mirror at my lopsided head. January18th. A bit pointless that one. I thought I would get involved in regular visits for re-constructive surgery or something but they were on to me by then. I was only in overnight, a complete waste of an ear.

As I shower I think about the one lesson that my parents taught me that I actually listened to. Persistence. If you don’t give up then you will succeed. That one turned out to be true. Look at me now. My only recurring failure is the court appearances, four times I’ve been declared sane despite doing my best to influence the outcome. They may try and release me back into the community again in a few weeks if I continue to appear well balanced.

I dry myself, get dressed and get back to my bed. On with the heart monitor and the other bits and pieces and I’m content again. The nurse appears again and asks me if I’m OK, I tell her that I’m fine and give her a thumbs up. My thumb looks a little odd, what with it missing the top quarter.

They tell me I’m getting better but I’ve already found the perfect place for the next addition to the gallery. They’ll not get rid of me that easily. Persistence, that’s the key. After all, this is where I belong.