It’s hard to imagine my housemate coming home
to find me unconscious at the bottom of the stairs
my head cracked against the radiator
the carpet splattered with blood.
It’s hard to imagine my family gathered in a room
while a surgeon tells them ‘I’m sorry, we did all we could.’
It’s hard to imagine that I’ll collapse
and a passing member of St John’s Ambulance will stoop down
and announce there’s no pulse
because I’m far too busy for drowning accidents
or chip pan fires
because it’s Glastonbury in June
and Edinburgh in August
and it’s their turn to come to ours for Christmas
and our turn to go to theirs for New Year
so there is no time for asthma attacks or carbon monoxide poisoning
motorway pile ups or complications during minor surgery
because I’m going to see Elbow
at Manchester Academy in September
and British Sea Power have got a new album out soon.
I sometimes forget we’re all going to die
but I can’t imagine seeing one of my friends wearing an oxygen mask
wired up to a machine
having their chest punched, being fed by a drip
surrounded by Get Well Soon cards and fresh fruit.
it’s hard to imagine getting a call late at night
and be told ‘Something Has Happened.’
We won’t need morphine or life support machines
because it’s hard to imagine any of us will be written out
like a character in our favourite sitcom
that we’d switch on the TV
and suddenly they’re not there.
It’s impossible to imagine that things will carry on without us
that one of us will die
and General Elections and Big Brother and the BBC website
and the Mousetrap and Derby County and animal rights activists
and Hollyoaks and the Radio 1 Breakfast Show
will continue like nothing’s changed
and in hundreds of years people will still meet for coffee
and renew library books
like none of us ever existed at all.