Since I became a vegetable I have never been so busy. Last night at around nine I watched a few minutes of The Glass Onion, which I enjoyed. Then I lost connection and everything went dark.
I fell asleep and woke at one and was conscious for the rest of the night. I had many ideas but since I can’t use my hands and make notes, I have to shout them at my poor son Carlo who is trying to get some sleep.
This is how I write these days; I fling a net over more or less random thoughts, draw it in and hope some kind of pattern emerges.
This morning three very beautiful Italian physiotherapists came to my room. They wore clean white uniforms with orange trim. They put me in what looked like a blue plastic bathing machine.
Then they hoisted me up and thrust me into a wheelchair. I was turned around and for the first time I was able to see the other side of my room. I saw the Italian sky through the window, some trees and a cloud and few birds. For the first time I believed that things might begin to improve.
My heart is like a singing bird.
The physios left and another came in. A very gentle man, handsome, who also works for Roma Football Club. He had been inspecting Tammy Abraham’s legs before examining mine.
He caressed my fingers and my feet, he opened my hands and pulsated them gently. I began to feel that I had a whole body, not just a patchwork of random pieces thrown together as if by Mary Shelley’s imagination.
Still, I have lost all sense of time. I don’t know what day is it or what month.
I have become a big admirer of Italian men. I find them very handsome. Their skin is smooth and it glows. Their sharp dark body hair is inspiring. They are neither macho nor mummy’s boys.
Since I lost my body, to look at, to smell and contemplate the bodies of others in such detail has become an aesthetic pleasure for me. The women too of course, with their long black hair and magnificent eyes.
I’ve had many intimate conversations with young queer and non-binary staff members. They are afraid for the future of Italy, which as you know has the misfortune of being governed by a fascist.
For these fabulous young people, to make a life they will have to leave their beautiful country and find a more sympathetic and humane environment. This is a great loss.
Italy is one of the great gay civilisations of Europe. The Vatican is gay as is the fashion industry. The entire aesthetic of the renaissance is based on polyamorous sexuality.
A few years again Britain had a very dangerous, if not catastrophic, Brexit debate which tore our country apart. Something similar has happened in Italy with Giorgia Meloni.
All Nazi and fascist programmes believe that the removal of a few miscreants will create a bright and new future. It is a cretinous conviction.
I’ve enjoyed being in this hospital. Everyone here has treated me with respect and courtesy. But there is something tragic, if not disconcerting, to see how closed it is when it comes to race. Every day I wonder where my brothers and sisters of colour are.
Are they kept in a special place to avoid contaminating the others? It would be a terrible thing if the country with the best food and culture and the most cultivated people turned itself into an island, isolated from the rest of the world.
Isabella D’amico Kureishi wants to make an intervention into this conversation. She says my knowledge of her country is not so varied and wise, and that I am not best placed to comment on the ills of Italian society given I have not bothered to learn her language. I tell her it would be easier for everyone in Italy to learn English than for me to understand Italian.
Literature, to its glory, is a dirty bastard form. From the most vulgar and scurrilous, to the most sublime and poetic. You can put anything in a book, twist it about and turn it into something unforgettable.
An insect, a hero, a ghost or Frankenstein’s monster. Out of these mixings will come magnificent horrors and amazements. Every day when I dictate these thoughts, I open what is left of my broken body in order to try and reach you, to stop myself from dying inside.
You are keeping me alive.
Big drink up for all of you tonight. Tomorrow should be more fun. You will be hearing from me underwater as I am trying hydrotherapy. I will be writing about sex; that is, sex without legs and fingers, sex without genitals and orgasms. It should be a blast.
The day after that, if there is another day, I will try and say something about drugs. Who could resist?
Stay with me friends; don’t let me go. In these shitty times, your loving cripple, Hanif.
Getting addicted to your daily writings, so good to read you. Your mind, your attitude, your strength, your generosity, your brilliance and your sense of humor. You are ace. Much love.
We’re here. Keep going x