From a bright star to alcohol, sex-fuelled chaos: Chris Kimaru's near-death experience

Illustration of a Sad man reclining on a table over his drink, isolated on a white background. [iStockphoto]

Faint in the distance, Chris picked out a sob and a whimper, and then the soft, discreet, shaky reverberations of a voice he had grown accustomed to, saying: “Please make it. Pleeease.”

His partner. His mother. A small crowd gathered around his bed, murmuring amongst themselves, shuffling about uneasily, all struggling with the same question: Why did you do this?  He made a great effort to open his eyes, but when the lids flew open, amid great pain, he could not see anything. A sharp pain sprang from his head and tore, like a pacing tsunami, across his frame. He tried to move his hands, but he could not. They were wrapped in bedsheets and tied against the frames of his bed. He strained to sit upright, but a piercing pain in his nasal cavity held him back. There were pipes driven into his nostrils, and a beep, and a whirr, as machines struggled to keep his organs from collapsing.