the accidental girl

A phonecall.
I make my first tentative steps up the clean stairs, smelling disinfectant and the rubbery smell of immobile skin. The door opens to the second floor and the foyer is bewilderingly busy, the metronome march of nurses in blue overalls and the warm smile of the doctor in her white.

I'm swept towards the ICU, towards a beige metal door, past the smells of chemicals, plastic and sanitising gel. I see Nick, unexpectedly, so, unprepared, I forget to say hello and smile wanly instead. He seems to understand and nods me through the door.

The tubes snake around his greyed limbs and peirce his wrists, wires and clips hang haphazardly and my eyes are swept to the screen. The screen which I've been conditioned from too much TV to depict the beat dwindling to a horizontal and cry a mournful tone.

My father looks like a cyborg medusa. The wires and tubes writhe as they inject him with blood thinners and heart regulating fluids. The machine obediently blinks his arrhythmic beat and stubbornly refuses to show a reduction in pressure. I forget I'm here to see him, my face is purely blank and businesslike as I hand him his paper, his toothbrush, his deodorant, his snacks, his blackberry. My heart is heavy with the memory of being his little rabbit and him carrying me on his shoulders, I don't want to be the strong one.

His faced is still an angry landscape of purples and yellows. The black stiches along his eyebrow giving him a roguish lopsidedness. He still smiles and tries to charm the female doctor. She smiles warmly and then a flash of worry on her face when she notes the twinkling blood pressure. Neon lights advertising old age and decreptitude.

I hold his hand. Conditioned by the televised spectacle of care. It's what you're supposed to do, right? I smile and offer to play cards. Everyone stands around looking at me worriedly. I feel numbed by the gloomy expectation. He picks up on the vibe, and once everyone has gone, he insists I commit all the codes, passwords and bank jargon to memory. Initially I refuse but his whisper of "just in case" won't leave my mind.

My father. Passing on the keys to his kingdom. But I am still not grown, i still need him strong.

Currently Nicosia is reeling from a tornado ripping through it on Friday. All I experienced was power shower pressure rain soaking me in the 2m from the car door to the front door, hail stones as big as a kiwi fruit smashing against the paving slabs outside and the sight of half a large tree sweeping up the road all on its own.

Interesting.

Funnily enough, it's pleasant getting wet when it's hot outside and you're by the sea but when you're in the middle of town, in office clothes, it's not so amusing.

It's weird to think only 3 weeks ago, I was with my good pal NNav, renting a boat from mikewatersports.com, and flying around Cape Greco. We stopped off near the blue lagoon, dropped anchor and I removed my lifejacket and jumped in, complete with snorkel and goggles and saw.. nothing. No fish, no sharks (ho ho) just the underside of the motorboat, the anchor slowly creeping across the sands to some particularly craggy looking rocks, 16m below.

Rule number 3 from mike' boats came to mind: "don't anchor on rocks, you'll never free yourselves and then we'll haveto cut th erope and buy a new anchor." Having ownership of the boat and anchor for all of 1 hour was too much stress for me, I rushed out of the sea, which, to be honest, was a disappointing swim after the rocky openess of the northern beaches, teeming with fishies, to get onto the boat and rescue the anchor.

We pulled it up, it got stuck on a rock. I swore internally, turned the motor on and inched forwards, hoping to dislodge the anchor by pulling it out the way it came. Inching forwards, NNav pulled in teh rope and just as we passed the vertical point of the anchor, it released, coming up easily.

Anyway, the summer's over now. No more boat rentals! I tried swimming yesterday with my brother and his pals but another storm swept in just as I was photographing my favourite little fish.