Dust

My father in law is back in hospital. His pneumonia has recurred or- more likely- never went away. 

The workman next door is sawing bricks in half or something- and raising such a fog of dust I can barely see through it. I hope he's wearing a mask. The surfaces in our back yard are turning orange.

As If

The hero of the thriller I've just read is a man my age- which is to say around 60- who wakes up in a hospital bed to find he's been shot in the leg (the exit wound is the size of a dinner plate), nearly drowned- and that he's suffering from short-term amnesia. So what does he do? Turn over and go back to sleep? Take early retirement? Hell, no; he's got a case to solve. He walks out of hospital with a pocket full of half-inched morphine capsules- and goes haring around London, confronting scary people, getting into fights, defying authority, not sleeping, not eating, exploring sewers, in a remorseless quest for justice and personal redemption.  Yeah, of course he does.