Under burning skies.

It’s strange, the things we remember when it comes to life’s big moments.

In this instance, so much seemed to happen in such a short space of time – a few hours, maybe less. Or perhaps it was longer. I can’t be sure anymore. My memory of it is distorted, unclear, and inconsistent with the versions shared by others much later on.

It was July 11th.

And I remember being back in a bay.

I must have recovered from the last infection – the one that had earned me a brief stay in a private room. But there couldn’t have been much time between then and the start of this new virus.

Although, if I’m honest, I’m not convinced it was a new infection. Maybe it was the same one that never really left – and the room had simply gone to someone who needed it more, while I was returned to the world of shared air and half-slept nights.

What I do remember is the pain in my throat – faint at first, and easy enough to ignore while I had my solitude. But once I was moved back into the bay, the pain grew, and a cough began to bloom.

Deep, rough, relentless. The kind that shakes you right to your core.

As to what happened next, there are two possible versions. The first is that everything unfolded within a few hours, the alternative is that I was given a day’s grace between events. But for a long time, I’ve always believed it was the former. For a long time, this has been the version that has kept me awake.

It must have been around half ten when the nurse came in to check on me. Tara – my guardian angel.

I didn’t think I was as bad as I was – at least no worse than usual – but one look at me and Tara’s expression shifted from concern to something more resembling fear.

“We need to move you.”

Words that might have seemed routine, if not for one detail – moving me couldn’t wait until morning. This was happening now. 

At that moment, I couldn’t help but wonder: was this normal? 

People get moved around in hospitals all the time. Beds freed up, rooms swapped, names shuffled on a chart. But there was something in her voice; something in the way she was suddenly moving with urgency, as others drew around my bed.

Monitors beeped, shoes squeaked against the floor, and the quiet of the sleeping bay had been broken.

She must have seen the panic on my face, the questions forming but never quite finding their way out.

“Do you want me to call your parents?”

I tried to hold myself together, careful not to strain my throat. “Yes, please,” I croaked, the words barely audible.

Minutes later, they were there – my mum’s hand finding mine, my dad hovering close behind. Just in time for the move.

Now in a private room, I thought that would be the end of my travels for the night. But somewhere in the blur of it all, another decision was made – I was being moved again.

Had I been part of that conversation? Had I agreed to it? I honestly don’t know. 

I can only remember the waiting. The stillness after the rush. And the slow, rhythmic tick of the clock while I lay there.

I didn’t know where I was going.

Maybe I hadn’t been told.

Maybe I couldn’t take it in.

But when midnight came, Belfast burned — bonfires rising across the city, their light spilling into the night air.

I couldn’t see them from my bed, but I could feel it somehow — the faint hum of life beyond the ward.

The world outside was moving.

Burning.

Alive.

All while I lay and waited, in a place where the fires of so many were fading, one by one.

In that moment, I couldn't help but wonder: would my fire be the next to fade?