Sixteen years and counting, he thought. Sixteen damn years in this bed or – he turned his eyes to the chair – in the wheelchair. He rolled his eyes back towards the window and sighed an extremely shallow sigh as he looked at the billowy clouds and the swarms of migrating birds. The sun had come up three hours ago and since then, Eric had been staring at the sky.

Breakfast was a hour away and he could hear his caretaker, Adrika, bustling in the kitchen through the vent. His eyes darted over the landscape and thought again, not for the first time, that he wished he had a bay window. The biggest window he could look out of was only a foot and a half wide, only giving him limited view of the field across the street.

He lifted his head and inhaled the stem that controlled the bed’s head section and blew two, quick puffs; his head lifted to a forty-degree angle. Ten more minutes passed and he finally felt sleep begin to drag him down. A phantom kick “shook” his legs and he passed out within seconds.