The First Daffodils of Spring: Confirming Death as an FY1

When faced with death one enters this mental space of uninhabited neutrality; Perhaps it’s a form of protection or perhaps it’s the un-naturality of it. Perhaps the absence of movement, the silence of motion causes us to retreat. No rise and fall, no twitching, no tensing, no flaring, no fluttering, no pulsation, no personality, no mannerisms. A complete dampening of autonomic amplitude. We rarely notice these minutiae of animation daily but find their absence unsettling.

But however deep we withdraw, however thick the coat we surround ourselves with, the softest most gentle parts of us always find a way to squeeze their way out. We find ourselves making small offerings. Offerings that we know are futile but somehow seem of the greatest importance: closing of the eyes, straightening the bed, tucking them in.

They are ashen and mottled blue, so we try to forge a hearth deep in the snow. We try to extend our warmth, but they are too far beneath the ice. Their glassy expression too distant and too thick to fathom.

So, we settle for blankets and silent blessings and listen to the stillness. Five minutes seems arbitrary, when the silence of death is so vast. It warps your perception of time. But still we count. There is something ritualistic about the way one confirms a death. The order, the timing, the precision.

…

Hector was no stranger to it. As the most junior doctor on the elderly care ward, it often fell to him. A registrar had once talked of it as an honour, being this arbiter of finality. The one who stops the clock. But Hector did not feel proud, or prestigious in this moment. He was not filled with light or gold or importance. He felt small, and grey, and numb. As if he were this fly on the wall. As if he were a pestilence. As if he had, instead, started the clock on decay.

He noted the time and the date. 06:37, 26th September 2024 and signed his name, before languidly looking out the window. Even the time, in its ugly randomness, lacked compassion, he thought.

The morning mist was breaking like waves over the flatness of the muddily tilled fields. Its somnolent smog sapping any speck of colour. It all felt grey. He was in that end-of-night-shift stupor. His thoughts were muted and monotone. A dry insipid taste clung to his mouth, he was parched, famished and his senses were sterile. It all felt grey. If only there were a medication he could take to add colour, a ‘tincture’ perhaps. The nuance of the word pleased him, and he smiled, briefly.

A soft but sharp voice pierced the drab, off-blue, ward-bay curtain. “Doctor Hector… Doctor Hector have you finished?”.

Hector paused, gave one last vacant glance of solemnity, steadied himself with a breath, and turned. He pulled the curtain, his movement felt clumsy next to such stifling stillness. “Yes AJ, can I help?”

He did not like calling people by their roles, it seemed too distant.

“Yes Doctor, it’s just that we need side room 11’s Pre-emptive medication prescribed… and they are due to be discharged later this morning”

AJ was slight, but her tenderness in stature and manner, belied a steely resolve. Hector liked this about her

“Of course, AJ, let me just call this patients family and I’ll get right to it”

AJ’s expression softened “Are you ok doctor?” she said gently placing a hand on the curve of his shoulder.

“I’m ok” Perhaps he’d feel comforted if he wasn’t so dulled.

AJ nodded, gave a warm half-smile and turned.

“Thank you”, He added, wishing the interaction would continue; not for any hope of connection, but rather of reluctance for the next.

…

He broke the news as trained, with warning, with delicate, deliberate pauses, and neutral empathy. The son cried unattractively down the phone. Hector didn’t know what he felt, for he didn’t let it surface.

…

Dr Harry Baggott

F1, Trent Foundation School

September 2025

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