‘Please.’He breathed the word. ‘A quiet death. A slide into it.’
‘No. Get up.’
He opened his eyes. something in my face must have told him I would not leave him in peace. He unfolded himself, as stiff and wooden as the puppets he had once carved. he held his hands up before him and looked at them stupidly. ‘I can’t feel them.’
‘Get up and moving. They’ll come back to life.’
He sighed. ‘It was such a good dream. I dreamed that we both died here and it was all over. There was nothing more we could do, and everyone agreed that we had tried and it wasn’t really our fault. They spoke kindly of us.’ He opened his eyes wider. ‘How did you stand up?’