The pain struck him in his sleep, traveled up his left arm, constricted it, and was only alleviated by the summoned emergency doctor. After that: a journey through clinics, rehabilitation centers, and places of the past - back to life. What happens here is a process that is part of everyday human and medical life in modern industrial nations. However, it only becomes vivid when someone affected tells their story. And who could be better suited for this than one of the most well-known and beloved German writers, who had to undergo this experience in his seventieth year? Peter Härtling takes the reader right into the dark moment when a grid settled over his chest and stole his breath away, and he takes them to the clinic where decisions about his fate will be made. With astonished eyes and a keen sense of humor, he describes it all.