Toni Le Busque's stories.

Story for my cousin- Part III

When I was around 15 years old, I inhaled so much carbon monoxide, that my lungs gave way and I collapsed on a strip of sand by a river bank.

I had been sleeping all day in the back room of a houseboat; a thing like a caravan on pontoons instead of wheels, and inhaling the fumes coming from the engine, under my door.
I remember the feeling of trying to drag myself out of sleep, of trying to raise myself from the bed.

But I was continually pulled back into the sleep.

I remember it as pleasurable, and some mornings now, when the heating has been left on all night, I feel a similar drowsiness and would like to return to my sleep.

Anyway, this day of the poisoning, I managed to get myself out of the bed and walk the length of the caravan-on-water, onto the shore, where I took a few steps and dropped to the sand.
Next thing I knew, I was being dragged around by someones arms around my chest, my toes slicing trails in the sand, my lungs being squeezed.

This was a near death experience, and I was thinking of it this morning as I walked to town.
I was thinking to myself that if on this very day I was to die, that the only real regret, the only real disappointment I would have is that of not having visited New York.