Apnoea 1

I was walking down some badly lit stairs to a station after a failed shopping trip to buy a toy typewriter for my sister when a well built teenager emergered from the shadows, saying, “give us your stereo”. I replied “Fuck you” and we struggled, his hands round my neck squeezing tighter and tighter, and my hands forcing his face back, my thumbs searching for his eyes, and then my thumb tips are pushing aganst his corneas, the soft flesh of his eyeballs trapped between my thumbnails and thumb flesh, and his grip stopping me breathing altogether, and the darkness descending with a high pitched whistle in my ears as my hands lose their strength. And then I wake up struggling for breath, heart racing, head spinning.

And that’s what sleep apnoea feels like.